


All the Ways (I Need You)

by breizhbit



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, F/M, Omega Verse, Or a lifetime of hugs, Rescue Missions, Yikes, alternate biology, alternate procreative identities, antagonist!Steve, just weird, not rapey, rescue gone wrong, sociological implications of ABO, still sort of silly though, totally the most graphic thing I have ever written
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-05
Updated: 2016-05-18
Packaged: 2018-04-30 03:11:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 54,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5148125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/breizhbit/pseuds/breizhbit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Darcy Lewis laughs in the face of her Omega biology, but five days after an unexpected kidnapping said biology rears its ugly head. Is it a good thing or a bad thing then, that her rescue party is comprised mainly of high-powered Alphas?</p><p>Bucky Barnes wants to save his best friend from screwing his relationship status up even further in the name of truth, justice, and the American way, but soon he comes up against instincts his training was supposed to have eradicated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, this trope. I kept coming across it in all kinds of fandoms, but somehow Bucky and Darcy were the ones with their hands in the air screaming "pick me!"

“So which of you is gonna take one for the team?” 

Tony Stark snarked out the question that the rest of the Avengers assembled in the tiny cabin were too tactful to ask. When none of the others answered, he continued more seriously,

“Lewis is not gonna be able to travel as is, and we’ve got maybe two hours tops before this location is compromised.”

This statement of fact was punctuated by an animalistic wail, suddenly more audible from the small bathroom attached to the back of the dusty log cabin. Unfortunately, it was the only source of privacy available to the miserable Omega inside. Jane Foster, dishevelled in her days-old clothes and desperately in need of a hairbrush, pulled her fraying lab coat tightly around herself and quickly shut the door behind her. She rejoined the group congregated by the front door, as far from the bathroom as they could get while still remaining inside the little shack.

“How is she?” asked Agent Romanoff brusquely.

“Not good. She’s angry with herself about getting into this situation in the first place, but really, how could either of us have planned to be kidnapped out from under the noses of the Avengers and Stark Tower’s security by a radical Hydra cell obsessed with building a bridge through space for their alien messiah figure? It’s not like she forgot to enter that into our google calendar.”

Jane sounded defensive, but she could hardly help it when faced with the wall of dominance before her. At least she stood something of a chance as a bonded Beta facing off against three Alphas in the midst of a life-or-death rescue mission gone wrong. Her assistant couldn’t even breathe the same air as them at the moment. Poor Darcy, Jane thought for the hundredth time that day. If this disaster was anyone’s fault it was Jane’s, for letting Darcy stand up to their captors, for having all the wrong reactions that got Darcy caught up in this mess. Jane was the rational scientist, the one they wanted, but Darcy had insisted they had to go through her first, and instead of killing her, they noticed Jane’s terrified reaction and took Darcy with them to keep Jane in line. For four long, miserable days they’d been moved around the world, landing a day ago in the Siberian stronghold where the rescue team finally caught up with them. Usually a few days without the pills would be no problem, as Omegas often took months to return to their cycles after going off suppressants. Unfortunately, Darcy seemed to be one of the few cases where the abrupt change in hormones triggered an immediate heat.

Through the whole ordeal Darcy had been so fearless, so loyal, that Jane had been humbled and grateful to have such a friend in her corner. Even when she’d started to feel the effects of her heat, she’d been brave and quick witted, using her highly distracting scent to confuse their attackers during their escape rather than give them an edge. And now look what Darcy got for it. With Thor on Asgard, they’d had to settle for four of Earth’s own superheroes, currently standing before her rolling their eyes in disgust. At least, Jane thought it was disgust. It was possible it could be something even uglier. Captain America had barely opened his eyes since setting foot into the dim cabin, looking as though he was suffering extreme indigestion, and his shadow, the ex-Winter Soldier, wasn’t much better. He usually looked somewhat sick to his stomach on missions though, so it was hard to tell. The Black Widow looked almost as poised as usual, but her jaw tensed and her nostrils flared as if encountering a particularly pungent smell. As if Darcy could help her pheromones. Jane narrowed her eyes, and Tony held up his hands in their metal gauntlets.

“We’re not saying this is her fault, Foster,” Tony began, spoiling it by muttering, “though if she’d been on the injection as she’d been advised, we wouldn’t be having this problem—”

“Darcy was perfectly within her rights to choose the form her suppressants take! She did nothing wrong!” Jane spit indignantly, flailing her thin arms. “I won’t stand here and let you insult her. You know what? If this is what it takes to get rescued around here, I’d rather head back to the frozen dungeon and wait for Thor to get back from Asgard. He may be from another world, but at least he doesn’t share your disgustingly chauvinistic attitude about _perfectly natural_ and _involuntary_ bodily functions.”

Captain America still didn’t open his eyes, but dropped his hands and took a steadying breath through his mouth.

“Let’s not be hasty Ma’am,” Steve said respectfully. “We’re going to get you and Miss Lewis home, but we need to come up with some options about how we can make that happen under the circumstances. We’d been counting on staying under their radar, but now that’s...not feasible.”

He turned to the Black Widow and just barely slit his eyes open. “Tasha, what’re we looking at?”

“The extraction team is rerouting, trying to get our location and come up with a new rendezvous point. We’ve got approximately an hour before we can expect to see Hydra pursuit this far west. If Tony takes Foster, he could meet the extraction team at the border and announce the successful rescue. That might put them off our trail indefinitely. Then again,” she paused.

“They still might sweep the area and find us,” Steve finished. “So we can’t count on waiting it out here until Miss Lewis recovers.”

“Considering that could be days, that would be unwise,” the stoic woman answered.

“So one of us’ll have to…” he turned a sort of purple color, and his best friend thumped him on the back.

“Don’t worry Stevie,” he said. “It doesn’t have to be you.”

Steve’s relationship history spawned an entire pulp literary genre: the Doomed Alpha Romance. His plane had gone down over the Atlantic days after having made the controversial choice to bond an Alpha female, Peggy Carter. While Peggy had finally gotten it together and moved on with her life, she’d never bonded another, so with Steve’s revival, the two found themselves in a very strange state: bonded but with such a strain of time and distance and ill health between them it would likely only be resolved by Peggy’s death. Steve’s bonding was truly the stuff of tragic romances, and Bucky didn’t want to stick another wrench in the works. 

“Don’t say that, Buck. There’s no way I could ask you to…” again Steve seemed to contort in discomfort. “Just no.”

“I’m seventy-eight percent certain I could take care of the problem,” Natasha stated confidently.

“...How is that even possible?” Steve wondered, shocked into taking a breath at the female Alpha’s assertion. He involuntarily sniffed the air, which then had him covering his nose guiltily. “Wait, I don’t want to know.”

“Well I definitely do,” said Stark with a leer, “but maybe some other time. I don’t know that seventy-eight percent is the kind of odds I like right now, not when we’ve got a one hundred percent success option glaring at us like a disgruntled raccoon. Let me just get in touch with the team, and Foster and I’ll be on our way.”

Tony stepped outside, obviously fiddling with his wrist pad controls. The door banged shut behind him.

“Wait,” Dr. Foster said frantically, looking around at the remaining Avengers. “You’re not suggesting what I think you’re suggesting—that us Betas take off while Darcy gets—” she struggled for a minute with her words, not used to having such antiquated situations intrude on her highly-ordered life. “Gets—serviced, like a horse? Ugh! As if I could let you—”

Steve cut her off sharply. “Look, Dr. Foster, this isn’t an easy situation. And no one will do anything that Miss Lewis doesn’t agree to.”

This was punctuated by another anguished wail from the bathroom that reminded them all exactly what Darcy was going through at the moment. Jane gritted her teeth. How could Darcy properly consent to anything when her hormones were rampaging around in her body in some outdated procreative inferno? Steve noticed her agitation and straightened, leaning over Jane’s petite form.

“In fact, maybe this situation will help you to understand why I was so surprised that Omegas would be working alongside Alphas and Betas in Stark Tower. In my day we didn’t have suppressants, and it seems they aren’t quite as failsafe as you’d led me to believe.”

Dr. Foster glared at Steve for daring to bring up her objections to his old-fashioned observations now when they were in the midst of such a tense situation. His posture had changed from retreating from the sounds and smells of Darcy’s plight to challenging Jane. She realized clinically that that didn’t bode well, so it was a relief when his friend again interceded with a hand placed on Steve’s shoulder.

“Enough Stevie. We’ll register your ‘I told you so’ with the National Archive; we get it punk,” said Bucky. “Get yourself under control, get some air if you have to.”

Steve glared at Bucky, but awareness of how he was acting dawned on him and he shook his head. Natasha smiled slightly. 

“Don’t worry Cap, we’re all on edge,” she said.

“Then how come you look so damned unaffected?” he asked, back to covering his face with his hands.

The redhead shrugged. “Training.”

“Then why do you, Buck?” Steve practically whined.

Bucky and Natasha shared a look. “He’s the one who trained me,” she said simply.

Steve opened his eyes, interested. “So then I guess you know about that seventy-eight percent—”

“On a need-to-know basis, buddy,” Bucky said uncomfortably. “But Stark’s right. Why risk it when we’ve got another option?”

“Other options, you mean,” said Steve. “I know you’re not ready for something like this. You’ve been making so much progress, and there’s no reason to compromise yourself on my mission…”

“Give it up jerk. Last I heard I was part of this team too. Look at yourself—you’re not saving me from shit right now. I’ll only do the least of what has to be done to get Lewis mobile. It’s not like I’ve gotta bond with her.”

Steve blanched at this assessment.

“See? Just hearing the word makes you look like you’re about to lose your lunch. Go outside, check the perimeter. You too, Natalia. There’s no reason for you to be here. We’ve got what, an hour, right?”

“Maybe two, but the sooner we can be prepared to move, the better.”

“Understood,” Bucky said with finality, and the two others nodded shortly and left the cabin. Jane’s eyes followed them out, but she kept herself firmly planted between Bucky and the bathroom door.

“Just don’t—don’t hurt her. Darcy’s so insecure about being an Omega—don’t make it worse.”

Bucky snorted and raised his eyebrows. “Insecure? We talking about the same loudmouth who wore the shortest skirt I have ever seen in my ninety-some odd years to Stark’s fanciest party? With army boots no less! The one who got disinvited to poker night for terrorizing Steve with her filthy jokes? Not to mention smuggling Stark’s cigars out in her top...”

Jane waved a dismissive hand. 

“She does those things because she wants to prove to herself that she can. That she’s not defined by this quirk of her biology. I know we have to get out of here. I know you need to be able to move her. But just—be careful, ok?”

A grunt followed by another keening sound filled the cabin, but Jane still barred the way.

“That’s my best friend in there,” Jane whispered, “even if she’s not quite herself right now.”

Bucky slowly nodded.

“Understood,” he repeated.

“Good.”

Jane sighed and moved back toward the bathroom. She opened the door a crack, and Bucky rocked back on his heels with the strength of the scent on the warm air that rolled out into the chill of the main room. Bucky shook himself, and started securing the room, drawing the tattered curtains and barring the back door. He avoided looking at the grungy mattress in the corner. There’d be time for that after getting things straight with Darcy. Jane began speaking quietly through the cracked door, and Bucky did her the courtesy of pretending he couldn’t hear her.

“Darcy, sweetie, Tony and I have to go. If we get back first we can put them off your trail. But you’re still going to need to move, so someone’s going to come in to help you, ok?”

“Oh God, noooooo,” came the wail from inside.

Darcy’s voice was strained and breathy, but she was talkative as ever.

“Please don’t let it be Steve. I cannot handle reaching that level of damsel-in-distressedness. The shame! I’ll never be able to crash another Avengers party again.”

“Well, Natasha offered too,” Jane said, a hint of amusement in her voice.

“Woah. Woahhhh,” said Darcy, sounding pretty damn distressed. “She is definitely like my lady love, don’t get me wrong—and normally I’d think that was pretty hot. But that’s not what my body thinks it requires at the mo’.”

Jane shook her head, and put her friend out of her misery. “Bucky’s here...No, he volunteered.”

Strain as he might, he couldn’t hear Darcy’s response, if she made one. Jane gave Darcy a fleeting two-thumbs-up and blew a kiss. If she wanted to remain undetected it wasn’t wise to get too much of Darcy’s scent on her.

“Stay safe, Janey,” Darcy responded.

Dr. Foster hurried out of the cabin without a backwards glance. Bucky took a moment to undo the straps of his kevlar vest and disarm himself, though he kept careful track of exactly where he set down each weapon. He waited until he could hear the others moving off the porch of the cabin, then walked over to the bathroom door.

“You ready to talk, Lewis? Natalia wants us on the move as soon as possible, so we’ve got to do what we can to get you under control.”

“Ughhhh Barnes, this is the worst.”

“I know kid,” Bucky said sympathetically.

“Gross. Don’t call me ‘kid’ when you’re about to bang my brains out. At least, I hope that’s what you’re going to do. Are you going to do that?” Darcy briefly paused when the pain in her nether regions became too much for her. She let out a little cry and Bucky could see her hugging herself through the opening in the door.

“Okay...doll.”

Through the haze of pain and lust, Darcy Anne Lewis snorted. Bucky could see why Steve had so much trouble with this one. She refused to fit into or onto any of the traditional boxes or pedestals for Omegas. Of course the development of suppressants in the 70s was a game-changer, but Bucky had a feeling that Darcy couldn’t help but be herself, whatever her biological status. When he was a kid, Omegas were usually taken into government custody at their first heat and put in a sanitorium until they were married and bonded to some lucky Alpha. Even then, it was uncommon to see one out on the streets alone. He and Steve had been brought up to treat Omegas like rare and precious flowers, so it was strange to be in this situation with someone who swore like a sailor and acted like she was anything but innocent.

“Can you come out of there? C’mon, you know the drill.”

“Actually, I don’t.”

“What? What do you mean you don’t?” Bucky’s brow furrowed, and he reached over to pull the bathroom door open wider. Darcy reached up and pulled the knob back toward her, stopping him.

“I mean, I had one heat when I was fourteen, I spent five days locked in my room crying and flipping out, then the next day my completely freaked Beta parents let me out and took me to the doctor to get my prescription, and that has been that for the past decade.”

“Okay,” said Bucky slowly. “So you’ve never...while you’ve been in heat. Are you telling me you’ve never been with an Alpha?”

“Arggggh,” cried Darcy. “Can’t we just skip this part and get to the crazy monkey sex so that Darcy can hear herself think again? And no, the answer is never. Never have I ever. Alphas are assholes. You superheroes are mostly okay, I think because you’re all adrenaline junkies and work your issues out with crazy risks, but Alphas in the real world are usually manipulative fuckwads. 

“I came pretty close to doing it with this Beta guy, but then he figured out I was an Omega and suddenly he developed an inferiority complex about everything. I tried to lie this one other time, because I really liked a Beta from my Ancient Civilizations class—he also rocked the man-bun, btw. He played bass in a band. I was super excited when I finally got him cornered, with no clue about the Omega thing. But I think I started to break my suppressants, because suddenly he could smell the truth, so then I got another prescription, with a higher dosage…”

Darcy was speaking ever more rapidly and increasing in pitch and volume. Bucky had his head in his hands and wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. He shook his head. They really didn’t have time for either. With the HYDRA team on the hunt, it would be disastrous to get caught in the act. 

Bucky sighed and cut her off.

“Let’s get this out of the way then: do you, Darcy Lewis consent to sex and or knotting if it becomes necessary to relieve your heat symptoms?”

“Yes, yes, one thousand times yes. Come on Barnes, you already know I’m ready to rip your pants off and lick your thighs,” she lowered her voice to a mutter, “and that was before I was an idiot and went into heat while kidnapped by HYDRA.“

Still on the other side of the bathroom door, Darcy must not have realized how close he was, or else was beyond caring. Bucky sat up straight, eyes wide. He’d had no idea Darcy was interested in him. Sure he was nice enough to look at, but they lived in a building full of outrageously good looking people, most of whom at least managed to hide their mental health issues better than he did, not to mention still had all their own body parts. Suddenly Jane’s earlier conversation took on another light. Bucky remembered that she’d been adamant about him not hurting Darcy, and had assured Darcy that he’d volunteered to help her. He’d thought she was squeamish about Alphas’ tendencies toward rough sex, but maybe she was trying to hint to him that Darcy’s feelings were at stake at well.

Could this be true? Bucky reached into the bathroom and gently removed Darcy’s hand from the doorknob so he could nudge the door open with his shoulder. Her skin was slick with sweat, and whatever control he’d displayed in front of Steve and Natalia was quickly slipping away. Darcy’s breath was coming in gasps again, and Bucky marvelled that she’d been able to speak so coherently (not to mention so goddamned much) while in this condition. He’d never met another Omega like her. Maybe they were out there for the past forty years and he’d never known because of the suppressants, but she was so...not obedient. Not demure, not retiring, not any of the normal words that got associated with Omegas in his experience.

Now that the door was open, he could see Darcy, hugging her knees to her chest. Her dark hair was soaked through with sweat, and the scent radiating out from the top of her head had him reeling back and creeping forward on his knees all at once. She’d managed to keep her underwear on and a tan tank top, though her bra was beside her on the floor with everything else she’d sacrificed to the waves of heat pulsing through her body. She saw him looking at the lacy purple number, and gasped out,

“Damn, I should have kept that on I guess. You old timey people probably love stuff like that. Hell, don’t most guys even now? But I was so hot and it was poky and isn’t it just my luck to get stuck in underwire for five straight days? My sister-in-law swears underwire is what’s causing the breast cancer epidemic, like there was some study in the Philippines and women who never wore bras had the same incidence of breast cancer as men. And that’s pretty convincing, ya know? But a serious bra like that sure makes the girls look good.”

Darcy sobbed, and Bucky couldn’t quite understand why, unless it was purely the pain she was experiencing due to her heat. He was beginning to get a little frustrated. He could do something about that, if she’d just shut up for a minute.

“And that’s exactly why I’m in this position! I got the memo that Stark employees were encouraged to get suppressant injections. But I asked to stay on the pill. You know why?”

Darcy just barely looked at Bucky out of the corner of her eye, and he started to formulate an answer, but she was already continuing on.

“Some people get nasty side effects from the injections—cramps, migraines, blood clots. Me? I get acne. I tried it in college and decided the inconvenience of the pill was worth it for my complexion. So my stupid vanity is the reason for this whole mission going south. I’m so sorry, Barnes. I’m the absolute worst!”

Darcy was crying in earnest now. She leaned toward him, but kept her arms wrapped securely around herself so she wouldn’t touch him. Because she didn’t think she deserved it. Poor kid was making herself suffer because she felt she should. He reached one hand over and petted her hair. She leaned into his touch, and Bucky knew they’d wasted enough time. Though Darcy had clearly needed to get this self-blaming thing out. Really, she was completely adorable. Her long dark lashes splayed out on her cheeks and the rivulets of tears merged further down with sweat from her heat.

Bucky forced himself to look away.

“It’s not your fault Darcy. C’mon, you couldn’t have known this was gonna happen. I highly doubt you planned to get kidnapped by HYDRA just so you could end up getting rushed through...that...in some crusty mold-infested safe house in Siberia.”

Darcy swiped her hand across her face and opened her big blue eyes.

“No! No, I definitely didn’t. But, but I still feel guilty because this is like, sort of a familiar scenario for me. Um, not like one that I’ve really been in. More like one that I maybe find myself thinking about...ugh, this is so embarrassing!! Why am I saying these things? Why can’t we just get to the doing it part?”

Bucky smiled slightly, since he’d been asking himself the same question. So this was one of Darcy’s’ fantasies? He looked around the disgusting room. This wasn’t exactly his cup of tea, but if she liked it, maybe it would make it a little easier for her to let go.

“C’mere.”

Bucky sat back on his heels and pulled Darcy into his lap, not allowing her to pull back this time. She always seemed so animated and lively that it was strange to feel how small she actually was. She shivered, but not from the cold, and he rubbed his hands over her arms.

Darcy immediately stuck her face in the hollow between his head and shoulder and inhaled deeply. She sighed happily.

“I am going to die of embarrassment later Barnes, so just remember that and don’t judge me too harshly ok? Cause I don’t think I can stop myself from doing some pretty bizzaro things right now.”

She breathed into his neck again and then leaned back, presenting her bare throat to him. It was almost incongruous to finally see her acting like a submissive, but Bucky’s body had no trouble propelling him forward to lick and suck at her pulse point. In fact, it was all he could do to keep himself from biting down. Christ, but she affected him deeply.

“Why don’t you go ahead and call me Bucky then, since you’re going to expire from embarrassment later anyway,” he said.

“Mmm, might as well,” she sighed.

While Bucky scooped her up and half-led half-dragged Darcy to the bed, she reached up and dragged her hand through Bucky’s hair, loosening it from its tie and tugging at the strands.

“Ugh, Barnes, you’re disgustingly pretty. Even with the raccoon eyes.” She touched the grease with her fingertip, trailing it down his face. If she kept on like that they were both going to be even more of a mess than was already in the cards.

“Bucky,” he reminded with a small growl.

“Bucky,” she agreed with a mysterious smile. Bucky almost asked her what she was thinking, but stopped himself because they were short on time and actually getting her talking again would mean they’d be here all night, still dressed and gagging for it when HYDRA finally got around to sweeping this neck of the woods.

Darcy’s half-lidded eyes and full-throttle pheromones were doing things to Bucky that frankly he hadn’t thought were possible any more. Natalia hadn’t been joking when she’d said he’d trained her in her reactions to Omegas in heat. He had been subjected to every fucked up Alpha-Omega test the Red Room could come up with, and had been conditioned to withstand the height on an Omega’s heat without falling prey to his instincts and compromising his mission objective, even when the two ran completely counter.

To breathe Darcy in and feel so primally connected was both freeing and terrifying. It proved on the one hand that he wasn’t as broken as he thought—his body still craved a partner and his instincts demanded that he lay claim to her regardless of his sordid history. But his fractured mind knew that he’d done such terrible things in the past, many of them to Omegas just like Darcy. It was a sick twist of fate that had him taking her in the role of the good-guy hero.

What could he do though? Besides being a beacon of hormones, an Omega simply could not be moved until heat was either over, which could take anywhere from two to five days, or until it was satisfied, which should at least buy them enough time to get the hell out of Dodge. Darcy was now clawing at Bucky’s clothing, and he held her hands still with his flesh one so that he could loosen the laces of his boots with the metal one. He refused to give in to the temptation to destroy them in his haste—he was going to need them later.

As soon as he’d finished, she reached up, licked her lips, and pulled his head down to hers. Trembling, she closed the distance with a little moan. Her kisses were hot and passionate, but stopped just shy of being sloppy or messy. So far, Bucky was having trouble believing she hadn’t done this before, though she was a big girl and had already admitted to having envisioned this scenario. With him, he wondered? Again, he stopped himself from asking more due to the time constraints than his own willpower.

Bucky was down to the standard issue boxer-briefs they wore under their suits, but Darcy miraculously still had on the tan shirt and black panties they’d started with. The top was just one of those little tank-top camisole things, and as Bucky was thinking about getting it off over her head, Darcy ground herself against his body, kissing him so deeply she ended up sucking his tongue right back into her mouth like the tide, like an undertow. Before he formulated a thought about it, he’d grabbed the back of her shirt and shredded it, yanking it off her body. It had to have hurt a little, but Darcy just moaned and tugged at his shorts. With a small amount of wriggling on both their parts, clothing was no longer an issue.

Bucky moved her back onto the grungy mattress, gently laying her down.

“No way!” panted Darcy, struggling to her knees and turning over. “I’ve been waiting ten years for this, dude. Do it the right way!”

Bucky sighed and ran his hand through his hair, forcing himself to slow down. Her position had his blood racing through his body and he was having way more trouble than he ought to be having moderating his behavior. He took a couple of even breaths, but they just served to fill his nose with her scent. When Darcy looked over her bare shoulder at him with an impatient glare, a feral growl ripped through him, and he grabbed her thighs and plunged into her, all thoughts about preparing her or trying not to knot her forgotten.

Darcy hissed at the intrusion, and Bucky forced his body to still until she could adjust. Darcy stayed silent for several long moments, and Bucky wondered if it was the longest she’d gone without making some kind of sound in his presence. Finally he kissed her neck and murmured, “You okay Darce?”

“Ha, yes!” she replied breathily. “What are you waiting for? Oh? Me? I go first? Okay.”

Then she thrust herself backwards against him and Bucky lost control for a minute. His hips slammed into hers over and over, hitting just the right spot.

“Don’t tense up, doll,” he warned. “Keep relaxing. Just press back if it feels right.”

Bucky reached his right hand around from where it had been clutching her hip and found her clit. Darcy was now making a truly outrageous amount of noise, but the others would alert them to any danger well before Darcy’s cries could make any difference. Rocking her between his body and his hand, Bucky felt Darcy’s orgasm growing imminent. Her muscles squeezed and relaxed and spasmed around him, setting off the chain of events that formed his knot, which only an Omega was physically capable of receiving without a huge amount of work or pain.

“Fuck, yes,” he muttered, any further thoughts trailing off into unintelligible grunts and groans. Darcy felt so good, but he had to hold himself back, or he might do something stupid. His face must have reflected his indecision, because when he caught her eye as she again twisted to look over her shoulder at him, she panted, “Whatever it is Bucky, just do it. Oh God, do all the things, ok?”

Something snapped inside of him and just as he felt a devastating wave of pleasure overwhelming him, just as his seed spilled out into Darcy over and over, he bit down on the skin at the base of her neck between her back and shoulder. The motion felt as involuntary as everything else that was happening at the moment, and Darcy’s cry sounded musical and amazed as he licked and sucked at the break he had made in her skin, taking her blood inside of him, leaving his saliva in her.

Darcy’s body went limp, and he lowered her down to the bed with him until they lay on their sides, still joined together. They stayed that way, shaking with sensation every few minutes as her body milked every last drop from his cock. Finally his knot receded, and Bucky had to rely on every last trick of his training not to follow Darcy into exhausted slumber. Even so, he lay still for several minutes until his breathing was back under control before rising unsteadily to his feet and peering out the front door.

Natalia had dumped some plastic bags and sanitizing wipes on the porch along with clothing for both of them. There was also a rusty bucket of icy water and pump bottle of sanitizing fluid, probably meant for their hair. This would leave them pretty grungy, but since there was no running water, they’d have to do their best. Bucky let Darcy sleep for a few minutes, since she’d had no chance to rest since they’d removed her from the HYDRA stronghold in the early hours of the morning, and had suffered an extremely physically stressful day. Bucky would guess it was now about an hour until sunset, and they needed to get moving soon.

He hauled the supplies inside and made short work of cleaning himself best he could, as well as wiping down his weapons, chest armour and boots. He did the same for Darcy’s shoes, and shoved all of their discarded clothing into the large plastic ziplock bags. When he got to Darcy’s shredded tank top he winced, hoping Natalia wouldn’t notice, and if she did notice, that she didn’t make a big deal to Steve. 

Bucky quickly tried to wake Darcy, who for once was too groggy for speech. Bucky took charge and cleaned her up, washing her hair right in the bucket of cold water. She shivered and groaned, but stayed far too out of it to protest. His fingers traced the bite mark on her neck, and he couldn’t help but give it another swipe with his tongue. A first aid kit had been left under the pile of new clothing, and he quickly bandaged the wound with a cotton pad and some medical tape. Still, Darcy hadn’t even fully roused. Damnit, what had he done to her?

She wasn’t coherent as he sped through dressing her, and he worried since her temperature had dropped so abruptly that she was getting sick. Bucky might have had sexual experience with Omegas from his time with the Red Room as the Winter Soldier, but he had minimal experience caring for one, and zero experience caring for a newly bonded one, if that was in fact what they were dealing with. Bucky couldn’t allow himself to consider that possibility at the moment.

He bundled Darcy into the coat Natalia had provided from God-knew-where and carefully tucked her wet hair into the fur-lined hood before zipping it up past her chin. He strapped on the rest of his gear and tipped the bucket of used water down the toilet, causing it to flush. The other supplies and the plastic bags he took to set out on the porch. This time when he opened the door Steve and Natalia were waiting for him.

“You ready to go Buck?” Steve said awkwardly, still looking sick to his stomach.

“Time?” Bucky demanded of Natalia. 

“1900 hours almost exactly. Stark and Foster made it to the border and are awaiting pickup. Cap and I are going to use these—” here Natalia kicked at the plastic bags of clothes with the toe of her boots, “to lay a false trail, and you two are to try to slip onto a local train until the quinjet is available to extract you.”

She handed him a Starkpad with the route they’d be taking, and Bucky nodded tersely. He would be alone with Darcy. That was probably for the best until he could try to explain to her what had happened, but he didn’t want the others reading into it.

Unfortunately Steve seemed to take his nod the wrong way.

“Bucky, if you want to go with Natasha I’m sure I could get Miss Lewis onto the train now that she’s...stable.”

“No!” the growl ripped out of him, and Bucky’s eyes widened in surprise in concert with the others’. “No, thanks Stevie, but I don’t have _that_ much control.” He smiled to try to play it off as a joke, but Steve and Natalia shared a concerned look that ended in the redheaded woman tossing him a trenchcoat she’d been holding.

“Can I check Darcy over?” she asked, holding up the first aid kit.

“Already got it.”

Natalia tried to lean past him to see where Darcy lay on the bed, but Bucky shifted his body to provide a solid barrier.

“She’s sleeping,” he said curtly. “Kid’s had a rough day.”

Steve and Natalia shared another look, and Steve looked like he was gearing up to say something uncomfortable for all of them. Quickly Bucky shifted their attention to the Starkpad which still showed a map of the area. 

“I’m going to carry her until she absolutely needs to be seen walking under her own power. Where on here would that most likely be?”

Natalia narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips, but studied the screen and pointed out an alternate route that would allow them to get closer to the town before being seen by civilians. They briefly discussed the mileage and train schedule, sticking to the mission. Steve still looked worried, but Natalia gathered the sealed bags of clothing and motioned for him to follow.

“See you soon, Bucky,” Steve said with an unconvincing smile.

“See ya punk.”

“We’ll be monitoring your location with the Starkpad, and I’ll send you a message about when to expect extraction,” Natalia said over her shoulder.

Bucky waved them off, and watched from the porch until they were out of sight, heading south before stepping back inside the cabin. The shack had felt so warm earlier, but now even with his serum-enhanced metabolism Bucky was starting to feel the cold. He slipped the black trench coat on but left it unbuttoned, fishing around in the pockets for the gloves he knew Natalia would not have neglected to place inside.

Fitting one glove carefully over his metal hand, Bucky used his other hand to push Darcy’s hair back from her eyes. Her scent was barely detectable over the antiseptic smell of the cleaner, but it still calmed him to sense that little bit of Darcy shining through. She was passed out cold, but her breathing was even, so she was probably just exhausted.

“Hey doll,” he said quietly, not sure whether or not he wanted to wake her, “we’ve gotta move out. I’m gonna carry you for a while.”

He put on his other glove and debated for a moment how to pick her up. He’d make better time with her on his back, but somehow he couldn’t bring himself to swing her up there where he would be unaware if her status took a turn for the worse. Instead he slipped one arm under her knees and the other behind her back, lifting Darcy bridal style and holding her tight against his chest. He shifted her into place, but she still didn’t stir. Hoping more than believing that all was well, Bucky scanned the cabin one final time for anything they’d left out of place and stepped through the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How did it strike you guys? Did it make sense, or did it leave you with a WTF feeling throughout? How were the characterizations for you? I wrote a little more for this and would like to take it a bit further, but only if it makes sense. Please let me know what you think!


	2. Chapter 2

An hour after the sun had fully set Bucky was jogging through the forest to the west of their point of origin, finally nearing the town where they were supposed to catch a train. The tickets had to be purchased at the station, but Bucky still hadn’t observed any signs of Darcy waking. Worry had been gnawing away at his stomach for the past half hour at least, and he reluctantly stopped when he could see the lights from the small town ahead.

Setting Darcy down on the leaf covered ground, Bucky knelt next to her. He shook her lightly, running his hand between her damp hair and fur lined hood.

“Darcy? Darce? C’mon, wake up.”

Nothing. He lightly slapped her pale cheek. Her eyelids fluttered, but then settled again, closed. Bucky’s worry got the better of him and he let out a very Alpha growl. “Wake up!” he roared.

Darcy’s eyes sprang open, and she sat up, still woozy and dazed. She stared at Bucky, and her lips moved, but no sound came out.

“Darcy, speak up. What’re you saying?”

She blinked. 

“Don’t worry, Bucky,” she whispered, sounding spacey. “You look scary but you’re really scared. The sheep are in the meadow and the kitties are already in their cardboard boxes. Sleepy time.”

And abruptly she slumped forward, onto his chest.

“What the hell?” Bucky wondered aloud. Was that her sensing his feelings?...shit, did the bond take, even without anybody’s knowledge or consent? Did he seriously bond some kid he’d been supposed to rescue from HYDRA? Some miserable excuse for a hero he was.

Darcy rubbed her face into his chest plate, which couldn’t have been very comfortable.

“Totally a hero,” she sighed. “Always there to shut down the self-righteous Omega-hating Captain.”

“That right?” Bucky’s concerns were myriad, but he smiled a little at this insight into how Darcy viewed him. Their interactions in the Tower were never more than friendly, but under the circumstances he could admit that it was with Darcy that he’d gotten back in touch with certain long-buried parts of himself that enjoyed the easy banter of casual flirting. They were both naturally talkative, friendly people, but he hadn’t read anything more than that into her behavior, since she was just as effusive with Natalia and her friend Barton. He also hadn’t realized that she felt so strongly about Steve. Maybe this explained why she always ragged on him so hard.

“Steve doesn’t hate Omegas, Darcy,” Bucky explained, “he was just brought up to treat them...differently than other people.”

“That’s obvious,” Darcy seemed to rouse a little more. He should have known he’d need to get her talking, then her inability to stop would do the rest of the work for him. “I guess he just hates me then.”

Bucky shifted Darcy again, trying to get her into a standing position while she was distracted with her words.

“Why do you say that, doll?”

“He told me not to hang out with you. He disinvited me from poker night because he ‘didn’t like the way I look at Sergeant Barnes’. That asshole! I wasn’t bothering you, was I?”

Bucky had levered them both upright. “No,” he said, surprised that this tiff with Steve had gone on completely behind his back.

“I told him that if you didn’t want to talk to me you could make your own decision, but that prick got all Alpha-patronizing and told me that it wasn’t my fault, that I was just making a fool out of myself because I was an Omega, and you were only being polite to me because of it.”

“Steve said that?” Bucky’s eyebrows were raised.

“Well, not exactly,” Darcy admitted. “He clearly felt he needed to protect you from my wicked wiles though. Like just the fact of being an Omega meant I was inexorably drawing you into my man-eating vag and Steve was nobly pulling you back from the brink.”

Bucky choked on that image. “Darcy, before today I had no idea that you were an Omega.”

“What?” she jerked up at that, blue eyes finally wide open. “Really? It wasn’t exactly a secret. Steve certainly knew.”

“I knew somebody in the Tower was, because Steve and Dr. Foster got into it over Omega rights, but with the suppressants I had no idea it was anyone I knew personally. And you don’t exactly act like the stereotypical submissive.”

“Damn straight,” Darcy agreed fiercely.

“I wonder why Steve never mentioned it though.”

Darcy waved her hand dismissively, and Bucky realized she didn’t have gloves of her own. He grabbed her hand and stuck in back in her pocket while she kept talking. “Well, that’s obvious. He couldn’t risk you getting curious since he wanted you all to himself. Alphas are greedy like that. And I guess,” she said grudgingly, “that I can understand why Steve would be so intense about having you back. All that ‘man out of time’ bs. No offense.”

Bucky raised his eyebrows. “What, with the way that punk’s been pushing me to get out and ‘be normal’ and ‘live life’? I think you’re reading too much into it, doll.”

“Riiiiiight,” said Darcy sarcastically.

Bucky smiled at her, relieved to see her animated again, and took her other hand. He wasn’t too worried about all this misunderstanding about Steve. The guy was a total teddy bear when it came down to it. They’d work it out. Unless Steve found out that Bucky had gone and bonded a helpless Omega, in which case his sense of honor might lead him to cut off Bucky’s other arm. Shit, there was a depressing thought. For a second Bucky considered ditching the Starkpad. He could take Darcy in the opposite direction, buying one way tickets to Pyongyang and dropping off the radar for a little while. Then he considered how desperate Dr. Foster had been when she’d asked him to take care of her friend, and how hurt Steve would be if he pulled another disappearing act. He also recalled that Darcy had a family, people who’d be upset--maybe were already beside themselves with worry. Bucky sighed and brushed off the dirt and leaves that adhered to Darcy’s knee length coat.

“You’re gonna have to walk now, doll. We’ve got to get to the train station. And here’s the really hard part: you’ve got to shut up.”

Darcy gaped at him, offended, and he hurried to explain before she went off on him.

“I’ll buy our tickets in Russian, but unless you speak it too, you’ve gotta keep quiet so no one notices a couple speaking English on a random podunk line heading south toward civilization. The team’s going to extract us from the train, so it’ll only be for a little while.”

Darcy’s indignant expression faded.

“Okay, but you can still talk to me, right? Even if I don’t understand what you’re saying?” She yawned. “Maybe it’ll help keep me awake. I still feel so sleepy, I just want to…” she started to lean into his shoulder, but Bucky steadied her on her feet and started her walking toward the town, though he took her left hand and pulled it into the trench coat pocket with his right.

“Alright,” he said, launching into a story about one of his missions for the USSR that was terrible if you considered it from an American political perspective, but hilarious in and of itself. He felt kind of like an idiot telling a long and drawn out story in Russian to someone who didn’t speak a word of the language, but to his surprise and dismay Darcy laughed in all the right places. Thinking about the troubling results of this experiment, the enormity of what he’d done finally hit Bucky full-force, and the bottom dropped out of his stomach.

“Нет, не на миссии ,” he muttered.

Bucky swallowed tightly and Darcy glanced up at him apprehensively. She leaned in and whispered, “What? Is something wrong? Tell me now!”

They’d reached the small streets of the barely-there town where they were to catch their train. He wrapped his arms around her and leaned down over her so that any passers-by would assume it was a public display of affection.

“I’m so sorry, Darce,” he whispered. “I...I couldn’t control myself. I honestly don’t know how this happened, if I had a blackout or what, but, well—your neck.”

Darcy’s hand strayed up to her neck, getting the side right on the first try. Of course she did. It was a serious wound; she had to have felt it. Biting an Omega like that was not something to play around with. What the fuck had he been thinking? He hadn’t been, that was obvious, but blaming it on a blackout was also kind of a copout. He had them all the time when he was first regaining his memories, but it’d been months since the last time he’d suffered one.

“So that happened,” she said, a dazed and wondering tone to her voice. She must be too exhausted still to react properly, but Bucky was grateful she wasn’t freaking out. That would probably come later. Or now. Darcy drew in a deep breath and Bucky braced himself for a flood of words.

“Wait, are you upset because you think I’m upset or are you upset because you didn’t want me to want you to do that? Did you want me to want you to do that or not? Are you upset for ex-super assassin self-hatred reasons or just normal-upset over a poorly thought out life choice?”

This was still whispered rapidly into his ear, but there were people passing by on the dirty sidewalk. Bucky couldn’t allow himself time to take in Darcy’s jumbled words. This was stupid. They were on a mission. That had to come before anything else. The town they’d entered barely had railway service, so it was imperative that they catch the train. Not only was it the last of the night, there might not be another the following day due to improvements on the line. He had pulled Darcy to one side, but they’d start to attract attention if they held a whole conversation out here, especially in English.

“We’ve got to move,” said Bucky, his eyes over Darcy’s shoulder on an old lady across the street who was slowly toting her shopping bags but had her beady eyes fixed on the two of them. He gripped her hand securely and set off for the train station at a rapid pace. It’d be best to get their tickets and save any hysterics (on his part or hers) for after they’d been extracted.

He returned to telling Darcy another jovial tale in Russian, but he barely paid attention to his words, and she no longer laughed at the punchlines. Bucky scanned the streets and hauled Darcy along next to him. He could feel her body beginning to slump again in exhaustion. He put his arm around her and subtly held her upright.

Thankfully it was Autumn still and not the biting chill of winter, otherwise Darcy’s battered ballet flats would have looked desperately out of place. Natalia was resourceful, but even she couldn’t make appropriate women’s fashion apparel appear in the middle of the woods. The clothes they were wearing had probably been stashed somewhere near the safe house and weren’t exactly in peak condition. The two of them had a decidedly scruffy look to them that might attract undesirable attention.

Finally the train station was within sight. Bucky took a slight risk and settled Darcy on a bench where she promptly slumped over, pulling her feet up and curling into a little ball. He made sure she was warm enough and stable before approaching the tiny ticket kiosk. He faked a buzz and waved off the man’s concern about Darcy by implying they’d been drinking all afternoon. He proceeded to pay a ridiculous sum of money for two bottles of water from an ancient machine, and hurried back to her side. With tickets in hand, Bucky shook Darcy hard on the arm to get her to bear her own weight on the way to the platform. He hated to do it, but there was little alternative if they didn’t want to attract more concern. He found another bench for Darcy and carefully nestled her into his right side. She was back under in seconds.

Checking in on the Starkpad, Bucky was alternately relieved and terrified to see their extraction was set for a mere thirty minutes after they boarded the train. Would Darcy be responsive by then? He’d tried and failed a couple of times to wake her, and he really needed to get her to drink some water. Bucky had already gulped his down. Used to deprivation, he hadn’t realized how thirsty he was until opening the bottle, and he knew that if he was dehydrated it had to be far more severe in Darcy.

He’d timed their arrival well, because the train pulled in before the nosy ticket booth attendant could ask any more questions about Darcy. Bucky had to subtly carry and drag Darcy across the platform to the train. She had completely slumped against him, and it had not gone unnoticed by the conductor. He played the happy drunk card with the surly man when he handed over their tickets, but Bucky feared for a moment there was going to be trouble. The man scowled, but let them onto the train. Hopefully nothing further would happen before the extraction. 

Choosing a car that was completely empty except for a couple of old ladies at the far end, Bucky carefully arranged them at the end of the right side of the car, leaning her against the window of the train so he could keep watch more effectively. They’d be able to reach the top of the car from the door behind them when the jet arrived, and he could easily carry Darcy that far if necessary. Bucky felt more on edge than he had in years. Running a mission like this was something thing that should be old hat to him, but with Darcy by his side everything looked different. She wasn’t just an objective, a target, or a package. Darcy was a gorgeous, amazing, exquisitely precious person that he was, for now anyway, completely responsible for keeping safe and healthy. The enormity of it all, added to the sudden heat of the train car, had him wiping sweat away from his brow.

The door opened, and the same sour-faced conductor appeared. The guy was middle aged and not much of a physical threat, though he walked like he thought he was. But he had a radio on him that could potentially cause them trouble, depending on whether or not HYDRA was listening in on the other end.

“Wake her up,” he demanded.

“She’s sleeping it off. She had an argument with her sister this morning, then they both got plastered by lunchtime,” Bucky smiled charmingly and rolled his eyes. “This happens every time she visits home.”

“Is her sister an Omega too?” asked the man smugly, reaching across his body for his radio. “We take trafficking seriously here, buddy.”

Bucky’s face retained the pleasant expression he’d been wearing, but his mind raced. The man must be an Alpha to be able to detect Darcy’s scent underneath all the layers of clothing and antibacterial wash they’d used. An Alpha train conductor with an exceptional nose, now there was a piece of bad luck. Usually Alphas steered clear of people-pleasing careers, doing better in physical labor or filling up the ranks as soldiers and law enforcement. His eyes took in the stiffly pressed uniform, the old and shabby train car on a line from nowhere, and the incongruous newness of the radio at the man’s shoulder. It could have been recently replaced, or…

Shit. Of course. They had stumbled into an operation targeting sex traffickers. Omegas were almost always the targets of such operations, as wealthy and powerful Alphas would pay exorbitant sums to get their paws on them. This was one more reason why Omegas like Darcy were flying under the radar, spending their lives on suppressants and having their medical records sealed. Between the discrimination, the physical effects of heat, and the threat of violence from unscrupulous Alphas it was no wonder they had all but disappeared from the social landscape. 

Bucky looked around. Where were the man’s reinforcements? They were likely on the train, but would they prevent an impediment to their extraction? As if on cue, the Starkpad buzzed in his pocket. Unless plans had changed, that was his five minute warning. Fuck. His hand reached toward his pocket to confirm, but the conductor stopped him with a gesture.

“I don’t think so, pal. This girl is an Omega, off suppressants, though it’s obvious you’ve tried to cover that up. Show’s over, don’t resist and things will go easier for you.”

The man not-so-subtly pulled back his jacket to reveal a holstered revolver. It was almost laughable when one considered how much weaponry Bucky had concealed on his person at the moment, but the point was not who would win in a firefight: it was how best to safely and quickly get Darcy on top of the train and into the quinjet. 

Bucky ditched the local personna and adopted something authoritative to mirror that of the man before him. Keeping his gloved hands where the man could see them, he tried reasoning first.

“You have the wrong idea,” Bucky said quickly, trying to get his words in before the man could use his radio. “I’m transporting this woman of her own free will, trying to get her home. You and I are on the same side here.”

The ‘conductor’ only rolled his eyes.

“Do you speak English?” Bucky tried.

The man’s eyes narrowed. “A bit,” he answered gruffly. Bucky prayed that was the case, and he wasn’t just faking it to seem impressive.

Bucky shifted so he could shake Darcy’s shoulder.

“Hey Darce, wake up. C’mon doll, time to wake up.”

All this did was cause Darcy to migrate from leaning against the window to leaning against his shoulder. Somewhat self-consciously, Bucky growled sharply, “Eyes open, Darcy!”

As before, this worked well, and Darcy sat up straight up. She blinked blearily at him.

“Darcy, this man is under the impression that I’m kidnapping you.”

“I thought the kidnapping part was over,” she said.

That was not the most helpful thing she could have come out with. She yawned and started to settle back down, but the man dressed as the train conductor leaned over Bucky and shook her awake. It took everything Bucky had to let him touch her.

“Who is this man?” The conductor said in heavily accented English. “To you,” he added.

“Oh him?” Darcy was still so obviously lethargic that she could barely focus her eyes on the man standing over them. “Superhot spyssassin Alpha bondmate, right?”

She leaned closer and rubbed her bleary eyes. “He looks really scary when he’s working but he’s totally a snuggler. Not that I’ve gotten to find out personally yet. But I can tell these things.” She nodded seriously before looking over at Bucky, whose eyebrows were drawn upward in incredulity.

“Totally a snuggler,” she confirmed.

Then her face scrunched up. Darcy hugged her middle through her coat and she whined, “Ugh Barnes, my stomach hurts. I don’t feel so good.”

Ignoring the undercover officer for a moment, Bucky grabbed the water bottle from where he’d tucked it between them and urged her to drink. Darcy took a few sips before passing out again on top of him. Between her tendency to do that and that comment about her stomach hurting Bucky was starting to feel panic clawing at his insides.

The man beside them drew back sharply and began speaking into his radio in rapid Russian. Bucky’s window to stop him slammed closed immediately since he couldn’t shove Darcy to the side without hurting her.

“--I didn’t catch every word, but I clearly heard ‘bondmate’. She seemed drugged, so she must have been coerced. If we hurry maybe it can be broken.”

Coerced? Broken? Shit. This charade had gone on long enough. Shifting Darcy carefully to the side, Bucky quickly stood and with a feral growl, grabbed the radio from the man and crushed it with his left hand. While the target’s attention was on that spectacle, Bucky drew the revolver he’d flashed earlier from its holster and motioned with it for the conductor to stand back.

“Stand down and you won’t get hurt,” Bucky warned. The Starkpad buzzed again in his pocket. Thirty seconds. Carefully covering the conductor, Bucky scooped Darcy up into a fireman’s carry. She didn’t protest at all, and Bucky tensed with fear for her wellbeing. He shook himself. Focus on the mission. With a backward glance toward the terrified conductor, he swiftly unlatched the door and went through it. Unfortunately for him, several black-clad agents were making their way through the car ahead of him, guns pointed in his direction.

Bucky heaved Darcy behind him and tossed the conductor’s gun off the side of the tracks, reaching for his own more reliable weapons at his hip. A bullet whizzed by his head and this more than anything caused him to lose his cool. Gripping the ladder leading to the roof of the car, Bucky shouted, “Watch the girl, moron!”

The local law enforcement, for that is undoubtedly who these barely trained jokers were, argued among themselves for a few minutes, allowing Bucky to reach the top of the car with Darcy.

“Drop the girl!” one of the men called out from below, and another stray shot went wide past Darcy’s side. Scrambling for the Starkpad with one hand while he held onto Darcy and the gun with the other, Bucky tapped the retrieval code he’d been given at the start of the mission.

With a very welcome whoosh of air, their ride rapidly descended and kept pace with the train, ramp open and ladder dangling. The shocked law enforcement officers started shooting randomly now, and Bucky couldn’t risk trying to climb the ladder while shielding Darcy effectively. Mercifully, the pilot turned on the lights, temporarily blinding their assailants and Bucky made his move.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here's the middle part! I hope you don't mind some more of Bucky's perspective while he freaks the freak out about life and then hurts his brain trying not to because: MISSION!
> 
> There's more to come...but I might need a few more days to finish it up.
> 
> How is it striking you so far? I hope I haven't lost anybody's interest with this switch to spy mode...


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Little bit of blood in places it ought not be, in case that's a problem for anybody.

Leaping up onto the ramp of the quinjet in a move no normal human could replicate, Bucky glanced around him quickly. He had reflexively tightened his grip on Darcy with his metal arm when tensing for the jump and he now loosened it, hoping he hadn’t hurt her.

“We’re in! Three assailants are firing from below; close the ramp IMMEDIATELY,” he bellowed.

Somebody was obviously up in the cockpit, but there was no sign of anyone else on board. As soon as the ramp began to retract, the jet gained rapid altitude. Bucky quickly pulled down the built-in stretcher and carefully rolled Darcy onto it, putting a hand under her head so it didn’t jolt her. He unzipped her dark coat and looked her over. No visible sign of injury, excepting of course the wound on her neck he had bandaged earlier.

Stepping quickly up the center aisle, Bucky stuck his head into the cockpit. It couldn’t be Stark up there, since he would have announced his presence in some obnoxious way by now. The pilot took one hand off the controller and waved.

“Barton?” Bucky asked, surprised. “You’re on this mission now?”

“Well, I wasn’t. I was—somewhere else, doing—something else. But then Stark had an emergency back in New York, and something went down with Steve, so Nat called me to grab you guys. I thought this was gonna be a nice and easy pickup but now I see you’ve got assailants shooting at you and Lewis is down for the count. Is it HYDRA?”

“Nah, just local enforcement,” Bucky said quickly. “Darcy’s not hit, but—”

Clint finally turned his head toward Bucky. What he saw must have worried him more than the sight of an unconscious Darcy on the video feed, because he set the autopilot and unstrapped his restraints.

“Shit, is she okay?”

Bucky’s nerves finally got the best of him and he stuttered out, “I don’t know! She’s been sleeping for three and a half hours now, and the last time I was able to rouse her she said her stomach hurt. Did Natalia tell you about the—”

“The heat? Yeah. She said you wouldn’t let her in to look Darcy over and that you snapped at Steve. You gonna freak out if I…?” Clint gestured toward the back where Darcy’s still form lay.

Bucky swallowed, and inhaled deeply. Clint was definitely an Alpha, Bucky had known that already, but there was something else in his scent that softened the edges a little. It might be nothing, but...

“You’re...bonded, right?” It was much more difficult to tell if an Alpha was bonded than an Omega, and people in their profession usually did their best to obscure anything in their scent that might give away personal information.

Clint nodded slowly. “You must have a damn good nose to be able to tell that,” he marvelled. “Nat’s the only other person that’s figured me out on her own, and she cheated and used psychological bullshit. Yes, I’m bonded. To an Omega, but she’s...not exactly typical.”

Bucky snorted and rolled his eyes in Darcy’s direction. Clint smiled. “Yeah, meet enough of them and you start to wonder where all this ‘sweet’ and ‘submissive’ crap started.”

“Then do you know what’s the matter?” Bucky urged.

“I dunno. This started right after you…?” Clint walked back toward Darcy and Bucky followed quickly, pushing ahead so he could peel back Darcy’s hood and brush her hair back from her face.

Clint’s eye caught on the bandage, just visible at the base of Darcy’s neck and his gaze shot up to Bucky, incredulous.

“Fuck!” he swore. “Dammit to hell. Steve was right!”

“Wait. What about Steve? No, first, do you know what’s wrong with Darcy?”

Clint gave him a long, searching look, and Bucky’s eyebrow began to twitch in annoyance.

“What?” he snarled.

Highly trained operative though he might be, Clint took a step back at that, but his words bubbled past his concern over Bucky’s threatening posture.

“You just bonded Lewis! You! Nat was swearing up and down that there was no conceivable way that the Winter Soldier could lose control, but Steve was on a rampage in the woods, tearing shit up because he said he could tell that you had.”

Bucky’s eyebrows rose. “Well, at least I don’t have to tell him.” Wow, Steve must be really pissed at him for screwing up. Maybe Steve and Darcy would find some common ground over what an idiot he was when she finally woke up enough to understand what had happened to her. Hopefully Steve would have calmed down by the time they all arrived back in New York.

“But enough about that, what’s wrong with Darcy? Stop looking at me like that!” he snapped, since Clint was back to staring at him like he was an idiot.

“You really don’t know?” he said. At Bucky’s growl, Clint held up his hands. “Okay, okay, I just...I thought it was common knowledge, especially for Alphas.”

“HYDRA didn’t exactly give me classes in taking care of a bondmate,” Bucky yelled, exasperated. 

“Yeah, but you must have heard _something_ , you know, before.”

Bucky leapt forward and grabbed Clint by the neck. “So help me Barton, you are going to tell me what is wrong with that woman right now or you are going out of this jet the back way.”

“All right, all right! She’s just tired! It’s totally normal for Omega bondmates to conk out for twelve hours or more right after bonding. You said you got her up a couple of times since then? That’s pretty amazing really. Usually they just pass out, no way to wake them at all.”

Bucky nodded, having let go of Clint when he’d started speaking.

“It was hard to wake her, but once I got her talking, well, you know she can’t shut up,” Bucky explained.

Clint snickered. “That’s my girl!” With a quick look at Bucky’s thunderous expression he amended, “Your girl. That’s your girl. Sheesh. Newly bonded people are so touchy…” he grumbled. He stopped to stare down at Darcy, and for a moment Bucky was afraid he was going to try to touch her, but he then continued,

“But yeah, sleep for half a day, wake up famished, feed ‘em their weight in Chinese food—or maybe that was just Laura—I dunno, none of this is ringing any bells?”

“No! Where do you expect me to know this from?”

“I don’t know! Health class? Romance novels? Really comprehensive pornography?”

Bucky snorted at that, and Clint shrugged.

“I guess you haven’t found Steve’s secret stash,” Clint muttered. “What? I’m sure he’s got one.” He shrugged again. “Bonding is just part of the cultural consciousness at this point.”

“Well it wasn’t relevant to my training, either as the Winter Soldier or in the Army. Before that I was just a dock worker, trying to keep my family fed and my best friend out of trouble.”

Clint looked skeptical. “You’re seriously telling me nobody _at all_ talked about bonding?”

“Not with Omegas. Not that I remember.”

“Seriously? I thought it was all state-arranged marriages for all of em. You had to have been around it.”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “I didn’t have a prayer of getting the money together to meet an Omega, though at least I would have been allowed to apply since I had a claim. Social Services took my older sister, Livvie, when she was fourteen. We never heard from her after that.”

Thinking back it was sort of strange how nobody even mentioned what bonding would realistically entail. Everyone knew about the bite, but mostly in context of how important it was to avoid doing so. Times were definitely different then, and it would be considered crass to talk about the sexual nature of Omega’s condition. Still, all anybody talked about in films or the news was the “pure love” of an Omega, nothing about how to get it. Maybe that was because it was so unlikely that it would ever become relevant in most people’s lives. 

Families of all classes were technically supposed to be allowed to exchange, but the fees made it completely impossible for all but the very rich. No one Bucky knew ever got back an Omega from a sanitorium, even after losing one like his family did. His Ma was so relieved when his younger sister Becca turned out to be a Beta, she threw a party.

There were brothels, of course, filled with unlucky Omegas whose families needed ready cash instead of the empty promises of the government. Maybe someone like he had been would have at least had a chance of knotting an Omega there, but Omega prostitutes notoriously wore metal collars that were supposed to prevent Alphas who might lose control from biting, and anyway the penalties doled out by the mobsters who ran those operations meant that any bond made in their establishment would be of short duration. But they were also pricey, and Bucky had needed to buy medicine for Steve on top of keeping food on the table for everybody, so any thought of Omegas was an unrealistic fantasy anyway.

“Woah. That’s crazy,” Clint shook his head. “We’ve come a long way since then, I guess.”

“I guess,” Bucky said, thinking that now instead of being rounded up and virtually sold to the highest bidder, Omegas instead had to live their lives as invisible, blending in with the Betas that made up the vast bulk of the population and subject to the rules of the Alphas in power. He drew in a sharp breath and brought his attention back to the present situation.

“So I just wait? What about the stomach pain?” Bucky knew he must sound like a mother hen, but hell, this was the priority right now. Darcy was the priority. He was suddenly hit with the thought that if nothing could be done—and it usually couldn’t, not without the death or severe debilitation of one of the bondmates, he knew that much—Darcy was the new priority for the rest of his life. No more mission objectives. No more handlers. No more orders from on high. Nothing was going to be more important to him ever again than this bond, that supposedly joined his very soul to hers. His breath caught, and Clint realized something was up, because he quickly grabbed Bucky by the shoulder and guided him to the seat along the sides of the jet next to where Darcy lay on the stretcher.

“Put your head between your knees, Barnes. Breathe. Don’t freak out. Darcy’s fine. She’s probably just hungry already. You know that girl, all she does on a normal day is talk and eat and play pranks on Tony. We’ll get back to New York and you can get her a pile of gourmet cheeseburgers, you know the kind she likes with the fancy cheese options and the artisan pickles? Yeah. She’ll be thrilled.” Clint shook his head. “Omegas can be such a pain in the ass sometimes, but the best thing about them is how easy they are to please.”

Bucky took in Clint’s words, tried to let them comfort him. Even with all the trouble she’d caused he hesitated to call Darcy a pain in the ass. She’d done her best to fix her situation, and had been brave and loyal in the face of danger. He had to respect that. Bucky took deep even breaths with his head down, but it wasn’t until he stuck out his right hand and found Darcy’s head with it that he really felt a shift. After staying like that a moment, Bucky sat up. He could do this. He had to.

Clint had gone back to the cockpit, so even though he felt a little silly, Bucky gave in to his desires and knelt sideways on his seat so that he could lean over the stretcher with the top half of his body, lay down, and stick his face in Darcy’s neck. He gently uncovered the bite on Darcy’s neck, and gave it a careful lick. The mark was red and raw but seemed to be healing well. A feeling in the realm of contentment or hopeful satisfaction welled up inside of him. Things would be incredibly different, but as long as Darcy came around and accepted the situation, Bucky would do whatever it took to make it work.

“Barnes, um, don’t freak out! It’s Barton.” Bucky’s whole body went rigid as the voice came over the loudspeaker. ”We’re getting close to New York. We’re in a quinjet so, you know, don’t break it when you wake up. Also you’re right next to Darcy, and you’ll be pretty angry with yourself if you forget, so I’m taking the risk here that you aren’t gonna take it out on me. I could have just parked and left you guys, ya know—”

“Shut up! I’m awake!” Bucky gingerly eased himself back from where Darcy was still out cold on the stretcher. He pushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear with his flesh hand and shook his head at himself, knowing full well that right now he would take any excuse whatsoever to touch her. She felt very warm to his touch, and while it was normal for an Omega to be running pretty hot during this part of their cycle, Clint had pretty well proved that Bucky knew shit about this part of caring for her. He traced her features and prayed she didn’t have a fever. Out of immediate danger, the bonding was affecting his behavior in the extreme.

Making his way to the cockpit, he stretched out his right arm before going through the reboot sequence in his mechanical one.

“How long was I out?” he asked.

“A little more than three hours. We’ve got another forty minutes of descent, but I didn’t want you to bump Darcy and then tear my head off because she got bruised by your metal arm or maybe just crushed under your ridiculously dense super muscles.”

“Thanks, I guess,” said Bucky. He felt rested but agitated, like there was something that he ought to be doing but he couldn’t figure out what. It was good that Barton had woken him now, but he wanted desperately to be in New York. Stark Tower was the safest place Bucky had known in seventy years, and it felt imperative to get Darcy there as quickly as possible. “Any word from Natalia?”

“Yeah, she checked in. Rogers wanted to be in New York to meet you, but I think Nat is gonna slow him down. Hopefully you guys will have a little time to rest before everyone gathers to kick your ass.”

Bucky couldn’t laugh at that, as Clint hadn’t exactly meant it as a joke. There was gonna be a line around the corner to give him hell for his lack of control, and Darcy at least should have her turn before Steve came over Very Disappointed and possibly ready to defend Darcy’s honor with physical violence. But there were lots of other people, Jane and Thor and Natalia all came to mind, who would have plenty to say on the matter as well. Even though it was exactly none of his business, Stark would probably feel the need to loudly make his opinions known as well.

“Did you tell Natalia that Steve was right? About the—bond,” Bucky almost choked on the word, though he’d been thinking about it almost nonstop since it happened. He was going to have to get more comfortable talking about it, since he had a feeling it would be a hot topic of conversation around the Tower for some time to come.

“Nah,” said Clint. “She didn’t ask, and I thought maybe it’d be better to wait and let you guys work it out in person. I don’t want to get in the middle of your personal life, Barnes.”

Bucky scowled. “For the last time, there’s nothing going on between me and Natalia!”

This had been the Avengers water-cooler gossip topic of choice since Natalia enjoyed having the chance to speak with someone on the team in her native tongue, even going so far as to cook some dishes she remembered from her childhood. Bucky knew he was not the intended target of the sudden culinary generosity, but rather the excuse for it. Natalia was too used to employing layers of subterfuge to come out with any obvious clues to her desires; if they were together, no one would have suspected. People suspected, ergo, she had her eye on someone else. 

It’s not that they were totally wrong about the two of them having history, it’s more that it wasn’t the kind of history everyone assumed. People who hadn’t been subjected to the fucked up stuff that came out of the Red Room couldn’t exactly understand what kind of a connection that forged. Bucky wasn’t sure he understood completely, especially since some of those memories were still so hazy that he could barely feel them out. Bucky feared that out of all the wetwork and nastiness he’d done for HYDRA, the worst of it lay in those jumbled impressions and the memory of the scent of Omega fear.

Bucky was interrupted from these dark thoughts by a pained cry from the back of the jet. Clint’s eyes widened, but Bucky was already running the short distance to Darcy’s side. She was straining against the straps and Bucky fumbled with them in his haste to get her out of them.

“Darcy, honey, slow down,” Bucky himself was agitated but he still spoke soothingly.

“Ow. Ouch. This _hurts_ Bucky,” Darcy said, and the pain in her voice stabbed right through Bucky’s chest. He helped her up from where she’d been lying on the stretcher. Her coat was halfway off her shoulders and her hair was matted where it had partly dried under her hood. Darcy looked around herself, alarmed, and squeaked, “I really hope this very fancy, very black airplane has a bathroom. I have to pee, like, buckets.”

Bucky sighed with relief that her need was such a basic one.

“It’s a quinjet Lewis,” Clint called from up front. “And lucky for you they decided to take pity on the schmucks that can’t hold it for the few hours it takes to get anywhere in this thing.”

“Hey Clint,” Darcy called.

“Hey yourself, hot stuff.”

“Here, lemme help you,” Bucky said, angling himself between Darcy and the front of the jet. Despite his outstretched hands she wriggled the rest of the way out of her coat on her own.

“Um, I think I can get this myself,” Darcy said uncomfortably. Bucky nodded, but still put his arm around her and escorted her across the narrow aisle, opening a black panel to reveal a tiny restroom. 

“How the hell was anybody supposed to know that was there? Aren’t planes supposed to have helpful little icons all over everything? What, you guys are too good for labels?” Darcy groused.

Bucky knew the quinjet schematics like the back of his hand by this point, so he just shrugged. 

“No point in labeling something that everybody already knows.”

“I didn’t know it,” Darcy grumbled. 

He felt awkward suddenly. Darcy wasn’t making eye contact, and she still looked pained. Was she finally realizing the import of their situation? She had to feel betrayed. She had trusted him to help her through her heat when she was completely vulnerable, and he’d fucked it up royally. Thinking back to that moment when his teeth had met her flesh, Bucky could not explain why or how it had happened. Only that it had been everything he’d never dared to hope for, and it was making him flush just to think about it. But Darcy might have had a very different experience. 

He’d always pictured Darcy as the kind of person that would make her outrage perfectly plain, but maybe something about this situation was causing her to retreat instead. Did he turn her into a stereotypical Omega by bonding her? The thought bothered Bucky more than he could say. Darcy stepped inside the miniscule compartment and tugged on the door he was still holding.

“Barnes, the door.” She sighed heavily, rolling her eyes up to the heavens in exasperation and jerking on it futilely. “This isn’t going to work out if you can’t let me go to the bathroom alone, dude.”

“Bucky,” he insisted, willing her to look up at him so he could gauge her feelings. Did she want it to work out? Was she feeling resentful? Resigned?

Darcy’s eyes darted to the side, away from him, and he tried to parse the emotions flitting across her face, but he wasn’t having much luck. She seemed to be battling herself about something, if that furrow between her brows could be counted on. Finally she sighed, and the little frown that had been tugging at her mouth released.

“Bucky,” Darcy agreed, meeting his eyes with a pleased, maybe slightly shy smile.

In sudden reaction to her expression, Bucky’s heart soared, and he stood there, taking in the sight of Darcy, this real and actual human being who had somehow ended up as his. Melodramatic films dealing with Alpha-Omega romances were starting to seem less unrealistic with all these intense highs and lows.

“Now, Bucky,” she continued sweetly, “Let. Go. Of. The. Door. Right now!”

Darcy jerked on the panel, and Bucky finally released it. It shut with an abrupt click. Bucky leaned back on the stretcher behind him and crossed his arms to wait.

“Barnes, get up here!” Clint called, and Bucky sighed sulkily and moved to the cockpit.

“What?” he said impatiently.

“Nothin. Just doing you a little favor. Man, you’re really racking those up today. I look forward to cashing them in at a later date. Pro tip: most people in brand new relationships don’t want the other person listening to them take a piss.”

Bucky glared at Clint. “Whatever. As if I care. The important thing is making sure Darcy’s okay.”

“I understand the sentiment, but Barnes, let the poor kid set some boundaries, ok? She seems to be taking this pretty damned well, but establishing a new bond is tricky stuff. You’ve got all these hormones jacking you up, trying to cement things. If you don’t remember to start your relationship the way you want things to stay though, bondmates can run into trouble.”

Bucky grumbled a little at Clint’s latest nugget of wisdom, but he had to admit it made sense. The trouble was, it was hard to gain enough distance from his intense feelings about Darcy to get any kind of perspective. He rubbed his eyes with his flesh hand. What a crazy day.

This period of reflection ended abruptly when Darcy staggered out of the compartment with the toilet, still clutching her middle. She gave a whine, and had already halfway climbed back on the stretcher by the time Bucky made it to her side. He scooped her up, sitting on the stretcher himself and arranging her on his lap. They should technically be strapped in for descent, but Bucky felt confident in his ability to steady Darcy as the quinjet changed angles. Just to be sure, he stretched one leg out and braced it on the wall across the aisle.

Some of his tension released when Darcy pressed her face into his shoulder. He breathed in her scent through the top of her head, and cursed her suppressants that had kept him from learning it over the past few months he’d been around her. Maybe if he had he’d understand what was bothering her.

“Hey, are we going to be on this...mini spaceship...that much longer?”

Bucky moved Darcy to the side so that he could see her face. Something was definitely bothering her.

“Not much longer. Probably about half an hour. This aircraft can cover a huge amount of distance extremely quickly, but we’re flying so high right now that it’ll take some time to get back down to the surface of the earth.”

He hoped she didn’t feel patronized by his explanation, but Darcy didn’t work directly with the Avengers Initiative or any of the attendant agencies. She’d also seemed fairly alarmed not to be on a passenger plane, so he didn’t want her to worry.

“Should I be chewing gum or something? Because my ears totally kill me on takeoff and landing.”

“It shouldn’t matter—if the pressurization in here was less than perfect, we’d turn to mush during takeoff anyway.” Bucky gingerly moved them so that he could brush his metal fingers over Darcy’s forehead. She looked at him a little strangely, but didn’t seem repulsed. The information gleaned through his artificial digits filtered through to his consciousness. She was hot, even for an Omega, he thought. Bucky didn’t want to worry Darcy if it was nothing, but she seemed unhappy, and not in the same lust-fueled way she had earlier. Which was a relief, because Barton. Ugh. But if there was something else wrong he needed to figure out what.

“Darcy, you’ve got a fever. It’s a hundred point six fahrenheit—do you know if that’s high for you right now?”

Darcy’s eyebrows shot up. “You sound pretty certain about that.” She shifted, taking a look at the metal hand that had returned to clasping her to him. “Could you really tell that? Like, your fingers take the temperature and it goes _right to your brain?_ That is _so cool_. Man, so you can touch anything and tell what temperature it is?”

“Among other things.”

“Wow! That has got to be like incredibly useful. Like, you must never ever have to worry about overcooking a roast.”

Bucky couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled up at the thought of HYDRA’s greatest minds’ life’s work being used for domestic cookery.

“Nah, I can’t say I’ve ever had to worry about that one,” he said wryly. His voice turned serious again and he persisted, “But is it too hot? I don’t, I don’t know what’s normal in this situation.”

“Aw, Bucky, it’s cool. You seem really worried.” Darcy smoothed the skin between his eyebrows with a slim fingertip. “But I also don’t wanna lie. I’ve got a fever. And some cramps. I know that’s normal for heat, but this is a different feeling. It’s probably not a big deal, but something else is likely going on.”

She grimaced as the muscles in her back spasmed. The furrow in Bucky’s brow returned, deeper than ever. He shifted so he could rub her lower back. Darcy quickly schooled her features.

“Whatever it is, I’m sure it’s gonna be okay. We’ll land, I’ll get checked out, no big deal.”

“What makes you sure it’s not normal?” he pressed.

“Things. Things I’ve observed.”

“Darcy,” he growled, “Tell me now!”

“Sheesh,” she grumbled, glaring at him. “Are you gonna do that every time I—”

Bucky’s face was still fierce, but the worry and distress he was feeling on her behalf must have become apparent to her, because Darcy’s face softened and she sighed.

“You can’t just take my word for it?” Darcy tried.

Bucky shook his head. “Not where your safety is concerned,” he said earnestly. “Sorry Darce, I just can’t.”

“I believe you.”

Darcy extracted her arms from his embrace and began pulling her hair back from where it was plastered to her head. Bucky flicked open his locker which was conveniently located above their heads and fished a hair tie out of the bag of gear that was kept stowed for him in each of the Avenger’s quinjets.

“Wow, you are...convenient,” Darcy said as she took it from him and tied her dark hair in a messy knot on the top of her head.

Bucky nudged her impatiently and Darcy gave in.

“There was blood in my pee,” she said. “Not a whole lot, but I know that’s not exactly normal.”

Bucky looked horrified. “Was it—did I?” Had he hurt her when he’d knotted her earlier? Knotting an Omega was supposed to be free of all the problems that Alphas had when trying to couple with other types, but maybe in losing control he’d done something wrong. Something else wrong, that was.

Darcy glared at him. “Woah, woah, self-blame soldier, calm it down. I just spent five days in some pretty unsanitary conditions, nevermind my immune system was probably all fucked up from going into heat. Like I said: we get home, I take a nap, I get checked out, and then—” Darcy looked a little unsure.

“Then we’ll figure it out,” Bucky supplied hopefully.

Darcy smiled up at him. “That’s right. We’ll figure it out.”

“You guys better figure it out quick, because it looks like you’ve got a welcoming committee,” Clint announced over his shoulder.

“What’d you mean?” asked Bucky, strapping Darcy into the seat next to the stretcher. She looked pretty annoyed at being arranged like a doll, but Bucky was gratified that she gave in with a huff and he could run up to see what Clint was talking about. They’d gotten close enough that the landing sequence was engaged, and the monitor showed the rooftop quinjet hangar, filled with people. He recognized Pepper Potts who looked stylish as ever while exasperatedly wrangling Tony. Jane Foster was also there, speaking heatedly to Sam Wilson. Dr. Banner hung back at the corner, leaning against the wall. Thankfully no Steve or Natalia, but this crew would be more than enough to deal with.

Bucky growled and moved back to sit next to Darcy.

“What’s up?” she asked impatiently.

“Landing deck is too goddamn full of nosy people,” Bucky explained with his arms crossed. 

“Do they know about the b-o-n-d yet?” Darcy asked. She yawned again after this and Bucky tried to keep her talking so he wouldn’t have to arrive with Darcy passed out cold again. Though maybe that would be easier for her. He wasn’t sure, and not being sure was making him sick with worry. His instincts demanded that he figure out what the hell he should be doing and make it god damned so.

“Dunno,” Bucky admitted. “But Sam’s there. He’ll be able to tell straight away, though I think everybody else is a Beta.”

He needed to know what to think about her casual acceptance of the bonding, so Bucky turned to her and let it out in a torrent, “Darcy, are you okay—with the bond? I mean, I know you were trusting me not to, but I did it anyway and I’m so sorry, but I have to ask—what are you thinking? Can you forgive me? You’ve been really calm about the whole thing, but is that just hormones talking?”

There was a jolt and a shudder as the quinjet locked onto the landing pad. Darcy took a deep breath and opened her mouth, but Clint unstrapped and called out,

“Sorry guys, time’s up. Stark took control of the door and it’s opening in 4-3-2-1—-”

There was a whoosh of air as the ramp descended. Darcy shrugged ruefully at Bucky and unstrapped herself, ducking away when Bucky tried to put his arm around her.

“Later,” she mouthed, and they both turned to the now-open ramp before them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It took way too long to write this--there's so much I wanted to stuff in there and they aren't even home yet. I hope it wasn't too boring. If there was too much back and forth or background or exposition, please say something, because I know it's not very tight. I wanted to post something though so I didn't totally lose momentum. 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!!


	4. Chapter 4

There was a brief moment of silence that hung off the metallic walls of the airy hangar when they stepped from the quinjet ramp. Bucky forced himself to respect Darcy’s wish to walk ahead on her own, but trailed just a half step behind. He kept his eyes on Sam Wilson, wanting to know the exact second Steve’s best friend from the future had figured him out. The man seemed to be a stabilizing presence for Steve, and Bucky himself had come to appreciate Sam’s non-judgemental attitude. But he was still an Alpha, however controlled, and right now Bucky wanted to get Darcy far away from everyone who might conceivably bother her.

“Darcy!” cried Jane. The tiny woman broke free of the little cluster beyond the base of the ramp and rushed Darcy.

Conscious thought had nothing to do with it—Bucky was in front of Darcy, whirling her up into his arms and sidestepping Jane before the bewildered scientist even realized why her friend was no longer there to hug.

“No! Bad Bucky!” Darcy said, bopping him on the head with her hand. Bucky set her down on the hangar floor behind him and scowled at her. 

“Very mature, Lewis,” he complained. 

“Darcy,” she corrected imperiously. He smirked at her, his mouth stretching into a smile at the twinkle in her eyes. This girl was something. She was beautiful, yes, but more than that, she was fun. He leaned over and touched his forehead to hers in a brief Alpha gesture of affection.

Bucky looked around and realized that his little display of possession had definitely made an impression. Tony and Pepper had matching wide-eyed expressions and both seemed seconds away from speaking. The gears in Sam’s mind still seemed to be turning, and Dr. Banner, leaning against the back wall, merely looked up from where he’d been reading on a Starkpard.

Jane’s brow furrowed as she turned toward their new position, and Darcy waved from behind Bucky’s shoulder where she braced one hand on his other shoulder and stood on her tiptoes to see over.

“Hey Boss Lady! Glad to see you got a shower, but you might want to check the top left hand drawer in your bathroom for a hairbrush. Just FYI. I’m fine, but if it’s all the same to you, I think I’m gonna take a sick day!” Darcy’s smile was wide and nervous and her speech was rapid. “Later!” she announced to the group, grabbing Bucky’s hand and attempting to drag him off.

“Come on,” she hissed at him. Louder she said, “I’ll just be borrowing super soldier 2.0 for a little while longer, k? I promise I’ll have him back in ‘like new’ condition. Well, ‘good’ condition, at the very least.”

“Considering he was only in ‘acceptable’ condition when we got him, I’d like to know what brought on the change,” Tony said to Pepper.

“I can take a guess,” she said archly.

Bucky stayed still, since they didn’t have much of a chance of getting out of there without some sort of resolution. Sam was watching them with his arms folded using his “listening” posture. This made it pretty difficult to read him, and not knowing what to expect was making Bucky nervous.

“Sorry Darce,” he said. “I don’t think we’re getting out of the debriefing for this one. Plus,” He indicated the red light over the elevator in the corner, “Stark has the exits locked down.”

“Damned right you’re not getting away!” said Tony. “Now soldier, report!”

Bucky raised his eyes to Tony. “Who died and made you mission leader? Last I checked Steve delegated debriefs on class two missions to Hill.”

“Hill is otherwise occupied, so I promoted myself,” Tony replied. The eccentric billionaire who was not functionally but technically (due to bankrolling the operation) their boss was in a care bears t shirt and sweatpants and eating dried goji berries straight from the plastic bag. Bucky was repulsed on many levels, but he confined himself to a raised eyebrow in response.

Jane ignored this and stepped slowly toward Bucky and Darcy. She could objectively recognize that Bucky was displaying some pretty classic dominant behavior made more extreme by his capabilities. This was not unexpected from an Alpha interacting with an Omega who they’d gone through heat with. She didn’t like the way Darcy was going along with it though.

“Darcy?” Jane asked, refusing to address Bucky even though that would be the proper etiquette in a dominant-submissive situation. Usually the “most” Alpha of a pair, whether male or female, was the one to look to first. Though they didn’t have the same Alpha-Beta-Omega genotyping on Asgard as on Earth, Thor was able to help her understand this a little better. It was the duty of the protector to filter contact that their partner might not desire. Jane hated it when people asked Thor to speak with her when she was right there, and she certainly wasn’t going to be cut off from her best friend just because super soldier part deux was malfunctioning. He was supposed to have been trained to resist his Alpha instincts that would interfere with missions. Why was he having such a tough time leaving Darcy alone?

“Um, you should probably talk to Bucky first,” Darcy said, disappointing Jane. “Sorry.”

Bucky waved his hand. “It’s okay. I’m okay. You can talk, just, if you wouldn’t mind staying where you are? Darcy needs some space.”

Jane noted how Bucky was clutching Darcy behind him while he said that, and gave him an unimpressed glare. Clearly he wasn’t counting himself.

He carefully took Darcy’s small hand in his and guided her around to his side so that Jane could see her. Darcy took her other hand and touched his face lightly, smiling shyly before turning to the small crowd.

“So uh, hey everybody!” said Darcy, stifling a yawn behind her hand. “Debrief, huh? I forget how that goes. Man, I’m too tired for this. So, you just say what happened, right? Well, Jane and I got kidnapped, we got rescued, I went into heat while we were being rescued, Bucky uh...volunteered, now we’re bonded and I really want to get back to that epic nap I’ve read about, so if you would excuse me…”

The small hangar echoed in bursts as everyone began to speak at once.

“WHAT?” Jane screeched in shock and fury.

Variations of “Oh wow” and “holy shit” abounded, and Bucky was gratified to find that Sam hadn’t figured them out before Darcy spilled the beans, since he was as shocked as the rest of them. It was probably just as well to tell everyone all at once, and good for Darcy for doing it on her own terms, even though it sure was causing a racket. Only Banner kept his usual mild manner, raising his eyebrows and sighing out a “huh.”

“How did this happen?” Tony had repeated this at least twice, clearly revelling in the drama. “Lewis bonded my dad’s dead friend. This is too much. Pep, get me a drink.”

“Oh please, Tony, think of Darcy! If she can stand it, you can at least listen to what she has to say!”

Jane tried to put aside her fury at Barnes and finally made herself heard once again. “Are you okay Darcy? Do you need help? This is really recent, just over...seven hours? eight? Maybe it’s not final yet.” she turned to Dr. Banner. “Bruce, you said you’d brush up on dynamics, have you read anything that might help?”

Bucky pressed his metal hand against his mouth to try to contain the growl that threatened to rip through him at that. Darcy glanced up at him quickly and squeezed his forearm supportively.

“Well,” Dr. Banner said after clearing his throat a couple times, “academically speaking, a procedure has been developed that removes and filters the blood of the bitten partner, diluting it with multiple transfusions so that the proper receptors are unable to bind with the partner material and complete the transformation to bondmates. It distances the pair, but doesn’t affect some of the changes in the biter. That can sometimes be lessened by immediate stomach pumping, but we’re probably beyond that now, and really the literature is inconclusive as to whether it helps.”

He turned to Darcy and Bucky. “May I ask a question?”

Bucky forced himself to nod despite his abhorrence.

“Do you want to look into that procedure further?”

“No, nope nopity nope nopers.” Darcy held up the hand that Bucky wasn’t clinging to. “Look guys, I bet this looks like a mess on the outside—”

“You can say that again,” Tony chimed in unhelpfully. Sam and Pepper nodded along with that aside.

“—and man, do we have to have some talks between the two of us about personal space in certain hygiene situations,” here Darcy squeezed Bucky’s hand so he wouldn’t think she was too upset. 

“But really dudes, I’m good, and I can already tell that Bucky is like two calming breaths away from throwing up at the thought of doing anything so incredibly awful, so let’s just agree to disagree at least until Darcy’s naptime is over. No bothering Bucky while I’m out! You know I’ll find out!”

He was distressed at the thought of such an unnatural procedure. Just hearing about it was like nails on a chalkboard to the instincts pulling him ever closer to Darcy, but hearing her shut down the suggestion with such finality sent a staggering wave of relief through him. Darcy didn’t want to dissolve the bond. He still didn’t have her reasons, but for now, it was enough for him. Whatever he had to do to make this work, to build a functioning relationship for Darcy’s sake, Bucky would do it. His mind dredged up doubts about how successful he’d be, but for the time being the rush of oxytocin and the other bonding hormones drowned out most of his conscious mind in a rush of joy and affection. It would be okay. Darcy snuck a look at him and then tipped her head against him, reassuring him of the strength of her decision. 

Darcy yawned, and Bucky caught the wince that she tried to hide within it. He shifted so he was touching her lower back again. Her muscles were still spasming, and he tapped the area lightly. Darcy looked at him and he raised his eyebrows in question. Bucky wanted to make sure that she got checked out, but he could also tell that Darcy was beginning to sag into his side again.

“Not now,” she said, and he nodded. If she asked to get checked out, their chances of leaving together without threats or violence dwindled to nothing. He hesitated, because he needed her to be alright, but Darcy getting rest seemed to be the first priority. Once she was safe and sleeping he could arrange for someone to check her out.

For a minute Bucky thought that was going to be enough for everybody for the time being, but then Jane rushed on, shaking her head in confusion.

“How can you possibly say you’re okay with something like that Darcy? This decision was made under duress. We’ve talked at length about the need for stricter definitions of consent for Omegas, whose instincts may be guiding them into situations that their logical minds would never sanction.”

“Dude, I consented. Loudly and repeatedly, if I remember right. Enthusiastic consent Janey, we talked about that too.”

“To the bonding?”

“Ehhhh,” Darcy looked at Bucky and he knew she could read his pained and guilty expression like a book. Strangely she was mirroring his expression. Was that just because of the bond? “That’s a little more ambiguous...I was definitely...encouraging. Um, verbally and otherwise.”

Darcy was blushing, and Bucky was trying to reach a particular place in his mind that should protect him from doing the same. He didn’t think it was working. All his years of training were deserting him today.

“Just because you were in heat! It doesn’t count if you can’t control yourself,” Jane insisted.

Darcy looked around. “Then it doesn’t count if Bucky couldn’t control himself?”

“You know that’s not what I meant! It’s up to the person with more power—”

“Ah-ah-ah, but you remember the Steinberg papers on bonding we talked about?” Darcy said.

“What? You’re bringing up Steinberg? You agreed with me that that was victim-blaming bunk! Putting the onus on Omega’s out of control pheromones for drawing in Alphas is old-fashioned nonsense.”

Darcy looked miserable. “I thought so too but...now I’m not so sure. Janey, I’d never been...in this situation before. I’d had the one initial heat when I was a teenager and that was spent by myself feeling mortified that my brothers might hear the sounds I was making. Which they did, and never let me live it down, by the way. God, they’re so annoying. Even now, I call them up they’re all ‘Unnnnnnnnnnnnnnhhh, ah ah ah, hi Darcy.’ Dickfaces.”

The subject was serious, but Bucky was amused but somehow not surprised to realize that Darcy grew up having to deal with older brothers. It was probably excellent training for her current career. He wanted to stop and ask her all about her family. They’d never really gotten that far in their everyday discussions. In fact, she might have been avoiding the subject to spare his feelings. Everyone had been walking on eggshells around him since Steve had introduced him to the team, so oddly this open confrontation made for kind of a nice change. It was freeing to hear people’s unfiltered opinions.

“Anyway, this whole thing...I need some time to think about it,” Darcy said. She yawned again. “That post-bonding passing out thing isn’t really optional you know.”

“Time is what you don’t have!” snapped Jane. “If you wait even a few more hours it might be too late.”

“So Lewis,” Tony chimed in, “I read the Steinberg paper, and that man caught a heck of a lot of flak from human rights activists. You’re seriously gonna corroborate his findings?”

Darcy looked miserably at the ground. “I should really talk to Bucky first.”

Bucky put his hand around her waist and turned her to look at him. “It’s okay, doll. You can talk about it now. What is it?”

Bucky could feel Pepper and Sam’s eyes on him, both staying silent and observing his interactions with Darcy. Dr. Banner had his arms folded and his Starkpad out, but he wasn’t looking at it, instead listening intently to what Darcy was saying.

“Basically this dude did some research on the whole ‘lack of control’ thing in Alphas regarding bonding. Obviously, they had to run the study so that the participants didn’t actually bond, and it was hard to find Omegas who were willing to go off suppressants, so the sample size was pretty small and it took a long time to run the study, but the research team analyzed bodily fluids from everyone involved, and then found that the most genetically complementary partners had the highest desire to bond. Not shocking, but then they found that the number one predictor for whether or not an Alpha would try to bite was how highly their Omega partner had rated them after a meeting at the beginning of the study.”

Darcy wrung her hands. “I’m so sorry! Maybe Steve was right! I did draw you in!”

Bucky was looking at her, unimpressed. 

“I don’t know how much you’ve read from my files, Darce, but I was a test subject in some similar but not so ethical tests.” He shuddered. “It was conditioning, to become the perfect Alpha fighter—all the offensive instincts with none of the protective desires that could hinder mission objectives. It went on for—a long time, and I didn’t even try to bond a single one.”

Bucky looked sick while admitting this, and Jane had her hand over her mouth. She at least hadn’t remembered that detail.

“But that just backs up the theory,” said Darcy. “Those Omegas,” she gulped, distressed and horrified at the sad situation, “they were probably scared out of their minds and would be fighting against a bond.”

Bucky’s mouth twisted sourly. “Not always. There were plenty of different...scenarios...that the researchers created to try to trip me up.”

He sighed, suddenly feeling the weight of all the years he’d spent in and out of cryo and all the stress and horror that accompanied his dreams. Darcy looked stricken with grief and pity at his words and feelings, and Bucky consciously tried to rein it in so his shit wouldn’t bother her. Not right now at least, not while she was so tired and vulnerable.

“You see, Darcy!” Jane said desperately, “This is probably too much for Bucky. We haven’t taken into account how stressful this is for him. Dissolving the bond would probably be a relief for him too—”

Bucky’s temper flared.

“Did you or did you not just hear Darcy say ‘no’, Foster?”

He started to push Darcy behind him once more so he could get closer to Jane, but Darcy grabbed his arm. Bucky stopped and really looked at her. She had deep circles under her eyes and she wiped away a stray tear with a sniffle.

“Please, Bucky. I can’t—I can’t do this right now. I need to lay down.”

Bucky turned to face the others. “I’m taking Darcy downstairs. Do not interfere.” His voice dropped into the chilling tone of the Winter Soldier and Bucky thought they got the picture that he was serious about this. It sure wasn’t great that he had to resort to implied threats, but Darcy needed to get out of there, and he wasn’t above using whatever he thought might make a difference. He scooped Darcy up and moved toward the elevator.

“Darcy—” Jane tried once more, but Sam put his hand on her shoulder.

“Dr. Foster, I think you should let her go,” he said kindly. To the rest of those gathered he said, “You heard the lady. She needs to sleep.”

“You think we should just let—” Tony began.

“Honestly,” Clint spoke up from where he’d been hovering on the ramp of the quinjet. “It’s their choice. Shouldn’t everybody let the two of them work it out?”

Jane glared at him, and Tony still looked like he wanted to milk this drama further.

“Just my two cents,” Clint huffed, but he smiled slightly when everyone realized that Bucky had taken advantage of the distraction to disappear with Darcy.

“How’d he avoid my lockdown?” Tony asked.

Everybody looked around—there’d been no sign of the elevator arriving, but Clint smiled and pointed to a panel used for servicing the jets that led down to the lower level. 

“Didya lock the stairwells from the maintenance level?” he asked with a grin.

“Dammit Barnes! I hate living with spies. You guys are way too smart and resourceful. It hurts my feelings.”

Pepper walked up and patted Tony on the arm. “I think it’s good for you, Tony. Keeps you on your toes. Besides, this way he didn’t have to cause any damage to the building to get Darcy out of here. And he was going to get her out of here—that much was clear.”

She turned, and put an arm around the distressed astrophysicist who stood alone by the ramp. 

“Come on, Jane, let’s go downstairs.” She led Jane to the elevator, motioning for Tony to unlock it. “I know this is unexpected, but don’t you think this could be a good thing? I mean, it wasn’t as if Darcy and Sergeant Barnes didn’t already get along. You remember when he first arrived and Darcy and Tony had gotten into that feud with all the whipped cream? We all thought he was going to lose it when Darcy attacked him with it, but instead that was the first time we heard him laugh. After that Darcy made it her mission to do whatever she could to make him do it again.”

“That is true,” Tony said, walking up to Jane’s other side. “Lewis even made up those Bucky Barnes emotional literacy bingo cards with squares for reactions—you remember, ‘chuckle’, ‘eye roll’ etcetera? I almost had it with ‘jaw tense’, ‘snort’, ‘deadpan glare’ and ‘eye roll’ but she cheated and put ‘smile’ in all the middle squares. Totally ruined the game.” 

Pepper smiled at the memory. “Maybe they didn’t discuss the bond in so many words, but they have a better foundation for an Alpha-Omega bond than some people do. I don’t know about taking it so far as Steinberg, but lots of those bonds are quickly made and hard for the partners to explain.”

“But—but Darcy worked so hard to leave her status as an Omega behind her and to get to a place in life where she wasn’t defined by her typing. It’s just so...tragic to see her trapped for the rest of her life because of something that she couldn’t control. She’s not like those Omegas who live in religious cults and vow to live their lives without suppressants ‘the way God intended’ and bond the first petitioner who can’t control himself,” Jane stuttered this out, practically in tears.

“She’s still not,” said Sam. “But there’s a lot science doesn’t know about the hows and whys of typing.”

He looked over at Dr. Banner who took up the thread. “I’m not trying to endorse the way of thinking that the Steinberg papers were used to support, but we still don’t know why some Alphas and Omegas are drawn to each other like magnets. Why will others never bond even if they go through heat together dozens of times? Why are Betas able to bond Alphas and Omegas even when their biology isn’t perfectly compatible? We still have far more questions than answers.”

Jane frowned. She didn’t like this feeling. Logically, Jane knew it was unfair of her to judge Darcy’s behavior when she was jacked up on hormones from her heat and newly bonded to someone she’d been increasingly curious since first meeting him months ago. She’d just been arguing with everyone that Darcy couldn’t be completely sound of mind in that state. Still, it felt like she was losing her best friend. Was this how Darcy had felt last year? Without her permission, Jane’s mind took her back to when she and Thor had bonded. There had been a formal ceremony on Asgard, but Darcy hadn’t been invited since non-essential Bifrost travel was frowned upon by the All-father. Darcy hadn’t complained, but instead had set up the New York lab in Stark Tower to her specifications and had organized a party for Thor and Jane on their return.

It had been sweet that Darcy had taken such a shine to the ex-assassin in their midst—her desire to help him reintegrate had struck Jane as selfless. Even when she’d started making offhand remarks about how good Bucky looked, Jane hadn’t really thought much of it. It was like she’d found an adorable puppy who had suffered neglect and Darcy was now determined to show it that the world was a good place. Jane hadn’t worried too much about her getting attached because Bucky the puppy seemed to have been returned to his original non-abusive owner, Captain America, and as such was no longer up for adoption. 

“What does Steve say about all this?” Jane asked, and she knew she’d hit on something by the way everyone else froze and looked around at each other. “Does he know about the bond?”

Tony looked to Clint, curiosity gleaming in his eyes. “I don’t know, Hawkguy, does he? Nat’s message said they were detained, but it wasn’t HYDRA related. What exactly is keeping them?”

“I dunno,” said Clint cagily. “I think Nat’s gonna try to buy some time, but he at least suspects and he’s...well, even less into the idea than you are Dr. Foster.”

Sam Wilson snorted. “You can say that again.”

Tony’s gossip-hungry ears pricked up. “Did you hear from him?”

Sam nodded. “Just a text. He wanted me to make sure that Bucky was okay. That’s why I got here so fast from DC. But Bucky seems completely good so now I’m wondering exactly what it was Steve was so worried about.”

“Sergeant Barnes seemed ‘okay’ to you?” Jane asked. Working at the VA, Sam Wilson had to be an expert in Alpha tendencies, since they made up a disproportionately huge percentage of the armed forces.

“Well, considering the enormity of what just happened to the dude today, yeah. I think he seemed more than okay, actually. He was focused on Lewis, just like a newly-bonded Alpha ought to be. If he’d been blaming himself too hard, it would’ve gotten in the way of a healthy bond. The guy’s had one seriously hard time recovering, though I’ve got to admit he’s been working like hell at it lately. When we first found him, I didn’t really believe recovery was an option. I thought he was too far gone. But look at him now, full on smiling at the girl like he’s glad she’s his. That is one resilient motherfucker right there.”

Jane looked away. She hadn’t really thought about it that way. Bucky’s instincts were telling him to take care of Darcy, and she couldn’t fault him for doing his job. Darcy had seemed happy and comfortable with him. Just because Jane didn’t think Darcy ought to have gotten so comfortable so fast wasn’t really grounds for trying to convince them to undergo tortuous experimental bond-breaking procedures. If Bucky really was going to be Darcy’s bondmate, she’d have to apologize.

“Come on, Foster,” Tony said. “I’ve got some new rift-stabilization tech in the lab downstairs that Selvig sent over. He said you’d want a look at it.”

“What? When did it come in?”

“Last night.”

“And you waited til now to tell me?” asked Jane, now entering the elevator as Tony punched in the codes. Bruce Banner trailed along after them, interested.

“Well, you were just rescued from a Siberian fortress,” Pepper said dryly.

“That was hours ago,” Jane replied with the wave of one tiny hand.

“Scientists,” said Clint disgustedly as the three Science Bros plus Pepper descended.

Sam shrugged, poking around at the new gear Stark had ordered for the quinjets.

“You going straight back to DC, man?” asked Clint, stowing the last of his stuff and picking up a bag to take downstairs.

“Nah, I get the feeling I ought to wait here and talk to Steve. He didn’t say much, but I didn’t like the way he called Lewis ‘that Omega’ in his text.”

“You’re telling me. Nat was as close to freaking out as she gets. Said she’d take a raging Hulk any day over the way Cap was acting this afternoon.”

“Damn.”

“Well, want to order out? No sense in starving while we wait for the star-spangled drama fountain.”

“No sense at all,” Sam agreed, and the two headed downstairs to the Avengers level to place some orders on Tony’s tab.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay guys, I know this chapter would probably benefit from a 3rd, 4th, or even 5th draft, but again I just want to get it out there. Since this is a ridiculously long conversation amongst 8 (!) different people, PLEASE tell me when it's not making sense or if something's unclear. It just went on. And on. And then Bucky and Darcy left. And still, it went on.
> 
> How did you like it? Could you follow it?
> 
> More things will happen in the next chapter (including SNUGGLEZ), but I hope there's some sense of where everybody stands on the issues!
> 
> Thanks SO MUCH for reading!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I totally underestimated how much I insist on packing into every chapter. I swear, it's getting ridiculous.

Bucky raced down the stairs, pausing on the landing of the floor with the apartment he shared with Steve. He gave Darcy a little shake. She was in his arms again, face smooshed against the side of his chestplate.

“You with me, doll?”

“Hmm?” Darcy responded groggily.

“Should we take you down to Medical?” he asked. Bucky desperately wanted to get Darcy in a safe space and keep her there, but he had to ask. If she thought there was something wrong that couldn’t wait, he’d have her down there as quick as he could.

Darcy stretched out the arm that was not crushed against Bucky.

“I was serious before,” she mumbled. “Rest is mandatory for me right now. Everything else can wait—will have to wait.” Darcy leaned her head against his chest and shifted. “Can we go to my room?”

Bucky made a face. Just as he’d been given a room in Steve’s suite, Darcy was on the floor with Jane and Thor. The big guy wasn’t around, but with the way Foster had made her feelings known Bucky wanted to avoid meeting her at the breakfast table for the time being.

“Do you need to? Right now I’d rather have you in my apartment. It’d be easier on me since I’m already familiar with it.”

Darcy opened her mouth, and Bucky quickly went on, “If you’re about to say anything about Steve, doll, don’t. He’s got his room, I’ve got mine, and he’s not even home.”

Darcy winced. “I don’t think Steve’ll be pleased to come home and find me in his apartment, Bucky. He might freak out and I’m telling you, I have got to get this rest.”

Darcy yawned again, and dragged her hands over her face. Bucky believed her. She was fading again, and fast. He took the doorknob in one hand and moved quickly but lightly down the wood paneled hallway to the door of the apartment he shared with Steve. 

“Don’t worry so much, sweetheart. If Steve comes home and wants to fight I promise we’ll keep it down. You won’t even know.”

“You won’t let him in the room, will you? Because you and Steve having some heart to heart right beside me while I’m out cold kind of freaks me out.”

“Nah, Darcy. Besides, don’t worry so much about Steve. He’s a punk, but I trust him. Whatever problems you two got into, he wouldn’t do anything that would seriously hurt me. And hurting you is the thing that could hurt me most.”

His mouth was moving, and his mind caught up to what he’d said as Darcy’s sleepy eyes widened. A blush spread over her lovely features.

“Eeep,” she said. She turned her face away and kind of squealed.

“What?” Bucky said, a little embarrassed for coming off so mushy, but also amused by Darcy’s reaction.

“You’re so, so...eeeep,” she squeaked again. “I can’t even with you. You’re lucky I’m so exhausted or that would be the second pair of pants I’ve ripped off you today.”

Bucky grinned as he moved through the apartment, opening his door with the side of his arm and kicking it closed behind them.

“I think we gained some time on the way home. Plenty of ‘today’ still left doll,” he said.

Darcy looked intrigued, but then gave in to another jaw-cracking yawn. “Maybe later,” she said sleepily. 

Bucky set her down in the middle of the bed. It was enormous with crisp white sheets and a down comforter with a beige and navy chevron duvet and he’d never actually slept in it. Sometimes Bucky would wear himself down to the point where he could sleep on the sofa with the television on, usually if he knew Steve was awake in his bedroom or office keeping watch. Otherwise Bucky would retreat to the armchair that had come with his room, pushed back against the wall so that he could simultaneously survey the door and the plate glass window that made up the upper half of one side of the room. He usually managed to catch a few hours that way.

Bucky pulled down the covers on one half of the bed, then slid Darcy over to the revealed sheet below. Darcy looked so tiny in the king sized bed that some long buried muscle memory resurfaced, and Bucky snugly tucked her in. He’d done that before, he realized, many times, for his kid sister. And before that, his older sister had done it for him. Shaking his head at the weird moment for those memories to surface—Darcy was not his sister. Yeah, she wasn’t his sister, but now she was his family. A soul-bond was in many ways tighter than the ties of blood and shared history. As the bond cemented itself and filled in the cracks of his every-day life, Darcy was well on her way to becoming his most precious person, the only one he really had besides Steve in this new world full noise and danger.

Darcy’s eyes were already closed, so he took a quick tour of the apartment, setting the alarm system manually from a control pad by the door since he preferred not to vocalize with Stark’s AI. It made him feel like he was losing it, talking to voices in the air. He had enough of those in his head as it was.

After pacing through each room, Bucky landed in front of the fridge. Clint had said Darcy would wake up hungry, and he believed her. Darcy and food were already two interrelated concepts in his mind, since in his experience they went together. For some reason his therapy sessions were always scheduled in a small office outside the break room nearest to Dr. Foster’s lab. Bucky had suspected the location had been changed so that he could avoid the medical floor, which still triggered him more than any other space in the tower. Darcy had adopted the kitchenette as her unofficial office, spreading out Jane’s data on the break room table. Even though there were much nicer facilities available to the team on other floors, slowly but surely most of the Avengers and their companions migrated downstairs to raid Darcy’s snacks and see what hijinks she was up to that day. Even though it lacked much of the state of the art communications and entertainment equipment available elsewhere, Darcy stole a projector so that she could more easily show the team videos and memes and other trappings of everyday modern life that she thought they ought to recognize or might find amusing. It brought a little slice of the normal life of modern Americans to the people who were supposed to be ensuring that life could continue.

Bucky cursed at the fridge. Darcy needed real food, not questionable leftovers or condiments. What had Clint suggested? Hamburgers? Is that what Darcy would want? Hadn’t he just heard her deliver a scathing critique of various fast-food preparation techniques last week? She’d sounded pretty down on burgers and fries. Bucky knew he had to find something for her to eat, but if this was traditionally the first big task of the bondmate like Clint had made it sound, he didn’t want to screw it up.

He walked back over to the bedroom. Darcy was lying just as he’d left her, tucked into the fluffy comforter with just her face and hair visible over the edge. He ought to leave her alone, let her sleep, but he felt so restless...She’d been up several times already, so maybe it wouldn’t hurt to check.

“Darcy? Darce? Are you awake?” he asked softly. He started to give up and back out of the room when Darcy let out a pained groan.

Bucky sat on the bed next to her and shook her lightly, worried now. “Darcy, are you okay? Sweetheart, wake up!”

With a sleepy blink, Darcy woke enough to fuss with the blankets and stretch her arms out from the covers toward him.

“Are you in pain? You were groaning again. Do you need me to take you down to Medical?” He again hesitated to do this, since it still wasn’t his favorite place in the building, the sterile whiteness and hospital beds churning up far more horror even than the labs where Stark, Foster, and Banner spent their time. But if Darcy needed it he’d have to endure it.

Darcy shook her head, but tugged on his hand when he gave it to her.

Bucky smiled with relief and pulled the blankets away enough to slide into the bed next to her. It was pretty comfortable. They were both grungy from the mission, and their hair was stringy from the bath with the bucket and antibacterial foam. Maybe he should give Darcy a real bath? But the way she rubbed her face against his neck and sighed sleepily led him to think she just needed to feel safe and rest. He did wish they were both clean so that he could learn her scent a little better. Even after hours of travel and stress the smell of the cleaner was making it hard to pick out some of the information that likely would have been available otherwise. Still, there were some things that were better to ask straight-out.

“Hey Darce, before you fall back to sleep...what d’you want to eat when you wake up? Is there anything else you need? I guess I should tell you that I...that, I guess there’s a lot I don’t know about taking care of a bondmate. Is there anything you wanna tell me now so I can get it ready for you?”

Darcy blinked and yawned hugely. “Don’t know. Want to sleep.” She raised her hand slightly, pointing toward the nightstand where a Starkpad lay facedown under the light. “The internet is always there for you, my friend.”

He nudged her again, “And food?” 

“Dunno? Mexican? Sushi? Thai? Indian…?” Her list faded out into a little snore, and Bucky scowled at her for being so non-specific. Was she seriously going to want food from four different places? And most of those were just ethnicities, not food dishes. Ugh, could she be any more Darcy? What had Clint said about Omegas being easy to please?

Darcy attempted to coil herself completely around his right arm and leg, but Bucky fended her off for long enough to reach the Starkpad. He sunk back down on the bed, keeping his booted feet off the side in case he needed to move quickly. Yes, there were walls and superheroes and all Stark’s security measures between Darcy and the outside world, but it didn’t pay to relax too much. Darcy didn’t seem to agree, and wiggled into his side until he gave in and put his arm around her. Trying not to get too distracted by the feel of her, he tapped in a simple search for “Alpha Omega bonding” and was staggered by the number of results, many of which seemed to be pornography-related.

He selected the wikipedia entry, since that might at least provide him with a place to start. They had references at the end of the articles that were sometimes helpful. It beat the SHIELD databases where they customarily looked for information, anyway. That wasn’t very likely to give him the information he was looking for.

“Alpha-Omega bonding is often referred to as a ‘classic’ or ‘perfect’ bond, especially between a male Alpha and a female Omega, though it shares most of its characteristics with bonds between all types.”

Bucky shook his head at the thought of himself entering into any sort of relationship considered “perfect”. He skipped to the ‘history’ section, and scrolled through antiquity and the middle ages and on until he got to the early twentieth century. Apparently this was considered a ‘dark age’ in Alpha and Omega bonding. The institutionalization of Omegas, beginning in Victorian times and becoming law by the turn of the century actually decreased the number of successful pair bonds, while making governments huge amounts of money as wealthy Alphas could apply again and again until they found a compatible Omega. This was like a punch to the gut. Livvie had been sent to the sanitorium when Bucky was still just a little kid, only nine or ten, but even though his family weren’t allowed contact with her, they assumed that she’d been living the high life with some rich Alpha. According to this, many Omegas were kept until they’d passed the age of childbearing and then were released out into the world with a tiny pension. 

These policies had drastically reduced the numbers of Alphas and Omegas born in the twentieth century, since while the genetics were complicated, typing did tend to run in families. Ironically, the practice of paying for an Omega mate had spurred the end of the sanitorium mandate, since many Omegas were now from wealthy families who wouldn’t stand for the violation of rights for their daughters (and sons, though as far and away the rarest type, male Omegas had an even more complex and culturally ignored role). Omegas born into affluence in the twentieth century had education and influence that led to the development of suppressant pills. Now, it was hard to even tell how many Omegas were out there, as it had been declared unconstitutional to collect census data on typing, but it was estimated that there were at least five Alphas for every Omega. They were thought to make up around two percent of the total population, with Beta being the common type of the bulk of the population.

Bucky had known they were rare, but it was a little shocking to realize that bonding an Omega was not at all something that any Alpha could expect to do in this day and age. 

But bonding. Bucky turned his attention to the next section, glossing over the sexual requirements and the physical bite. There were only a few lines after that, mostly stating what Clint had already told him, Omega partners tended to fall into a deep sleep, allowing their bodies to make necessary changes to absorb the partner’s genetic material. This consumed a huge amount of energy compared to Alpha bonding, since Omega blood is a much more potent bonding substance than Alpha saliva, which an Omega’s body must decode, distribute, and incorporate.

The scientific aspects weren’t much help to Bucky, but there was a footnote at the end of the sentence about energy usage which led to a public health guide from the UK NHS about caring for a bondmate that had more of the kind of practical information that he was looking for. It stated that Omega bondmates would indeed need to eat copious amounts after sleeping, and that their Alpha mates were traditionally responsible for ensuring their safety during their bonding and recovery time. The next section stopped Bucky in his tracks.

“The rest period has been traditionally held as sacred for Omega bondmates, and modern science backs this up as their bodies are in a state of stress due to the complexities of incorporating Alpha genetic material. It is common for immune systems to be compromised, and so for partners bonding under less than ideal circumstances, interrupted sleep or exposure to unsanitary environments can lead to increased susceptibility to viral and bacterial infections.”

Shit. Darcy had said something about unsanitary conditions, and like an idiot he’d been waking her up every couple of hours since they’d bonded. Why hadn’t he realized this was wrong? Bucky cursed himself for never finding out about this facet of bonding, and doubly cursed his fucked up life that had him unaware of the most important information. What the hell had he been thinking, waking her up to ask about food?

He sat up, needing to act. He could haul Darcy down the stairs to Medical, but it was a long trip even in the elevator, and the last thing he wanted to do was disturb her further. But only two floors above, Dr. Banner should be in the labs with Stark and Foster. He wasn’t exactly an MD, but he was a biologist, and Foster had just had him looking into dynamics. He could at least look Darcy over and listen to her symptoms. Would he help? He had been the one to explain that fucked up bond-breaking procedure, but only at Foster’s behest. He’d also dropped it as soon as Darcy said no. Unable to see any angle of this situation that might lead to a loss of control on Dr Banner’s part, Bucky nodded to himself. He’d ask. He rose smoothly, tucking the blankets back around Darcy when she shifted to find him.

He shut the bedroom door behind him and hesitantly addressed the building. 

“Uh, JARVIS?”

“Yes, Sergeant Barnes?” The courteous efficiency of the disembodied voice weirded him out, but now was not the time.

“Can I be sure that no one is going to come through this door until I get back?”

“I will lock it behind you, Sergeant, but if Miss Lewis wishes to leave I will not impede her.”

“Can you let me know if she wakes up?” Bucky asked.

“Yes sir, as long as she does not expressly forbid me from doing so. There are also security protocols that would force me to unlock the door, but only for Sir or Captain Rogers, and only under certain urgent circumstances.”

“So Steve can’t just walk in and tell you to open the door?”

“That is correct. It would take verified emergency measures for me to authorize his entry.”

Bucky nodded. That sounded reasonable. It should only take minutes to return with Dr. Banner in any event. Too keyed up to wait for the elevator, Bucky sprinted up the stairs to the floor where Dr. Banner’s lab was located.

He reached the doorway to Stark’s lab, and saw Tony, Bruce, Jane, and Pepper clustered around a monitor. Though the door would probably open for him, he instead tapped on the glass. They all looked up, but with a word, Pepper left the group and came to the door.

“Sergeant Barnes,” she said, “I didn’t expect to see you again for a while.”

Bucky looked at her and noticed that she too was tired. He briefly recalled that Tony had experienced some sort of emergency that had prevented him from performing the extraction in Siberia. Was it something that had kept his partner up all night? He was curious, but Darcy came first.

“I have a question for Dr. Banner.”

Pepper’s eyebrows rose.

“Not—not about anything from earlier,” he mumbled. Bucky was starting to feel like he should have stayed put in his apartment next to Darcy. Wasn’t the AI supposed to be able to send messages? Hell, he could have sent a message on the Starkpad. What was he doing, running around the building? He’d needed to move though, to run, and this had seemed like a reasonable outlet.

“Bruce,” Pepper called, and Dr. Banner shared a surprised look with his compatriots. He strode over to the door. Pepper nodded to Bucky and went back to whatever the others were doing.

Dr. Banner saw Bucky’s furrowed brow.

“They’re working on sealing the security breach that allowed HYDRA to get to Darcy and Jane.”

Bucky’s eyebrows rose. “I thought they got them when they left the building.”

“They did, but Stark Tower security doesn’t end at the doors. There should have been at the very least an alert when they left without authorization. Jane and Darcy didn’t enter their exit codes, we know that not just from their statements but from video feed and we’re trying to figure out who or what did.”

Bucky’s eyes widened. “Is security still compromised?”

“It shouldn’t be. We’ve changed all personnel and have been interrogating those on duty when the abduction happened. It’s more likely a human issue than a technical one, but Tony’s better at fixing the latter so he’s tearing everything apart while Hill is sorting out the more likely suspects.”

Bucky nodded. That explained why Hill hadn’t been there for their sideshow of a debrief, and why Stark seemed at such loose ends.

“But you wanted to see me?” Banner’s rather soft expression molded into one of curiosity, and Bucky hurried to explain.

“I was reading a little about bonding—I dunno if Barton or anybody told you, but I guess there’s some stuff that’s common knowledge now that wasn’t when I was a kid. And it said it’s really dangerous to wake Omegas before they’re ready. I did it—maybe three times on my own, but she also woke up a couple of times in pain. She said she was having muscle cramps and when she went to the bathroom there was some blood.”

“She’s sleeping now?”

“Yes, the AI said he’d tell me if she woke up. I hope—I hope she’s okay. I swear I didn’t know it could hurt to wake her,” Bucky swallowed and tried to rein in his out of control feelings. “But can you check? To see if she’s alright?”

Dr. Banner’s eyebrows rose.

“Wouldn’t you rather have a medical doctor up from downstairs?”

Bucky shook his head. “Only if we need to. Especially not with the security compromised right now. Darcy likes you,” he said. _I trust you_ , he couldn’t quite say. “And you could tell if there was really a problem, right?”

Dr. Banner nodded slowly. “Let me get a few things,” he said, and left the door open for Bucky to decide whether or not to follow him in.

“Sir,” announced the AI suddenly. “Agent Romanoff has arrived.”

“Is Steve with her?” The question was out of Bucky’s mouth before he could think about it.

“No, but Captain—”

“Don’t worry about it J, just get Natasha down here ASAP,” Tony overrode. “Natasha will have more complete information anyway.”

Bucky paced by the door, and when he saw the door to the stairwell fly open, he jogged toward it. Natalia flew toward him, and managed to get the drop on him when she landed an open-handed slap hard across his jaw.

She swore at him in Russian for long enough for the occupants of the lab to come running. 

“Yes, yes, I’m an idiot, yes, I have apparently lost all right to call myself a soldier,” Bucky waved away her insults. “Natalia, what’s going on?”

Natasha looked around her. “Where’s Darcy?”

“She’s sleeping,” Bucky said. “I left her downstairs to get Dr. Banner. She’s not feeling well.”

Natasha stared at him. “You left your bondmate, with that maniac on the loose?”

“Maniac? Do you know who stopped the alarm during the kidnapping?” Bucky urged. Tony, Jane and Pepper were urgently looking back and forth, while Bruce hurried out of the lab holding a brown messenger bag.

“No. But Rogers gave me the slip an hour ago, when we were coming in over the city. He took out my comm and jumped off the jet into the Bay in a move that even I thought was suicide. I wasted too much time trying to find him from the air,” Natalia was practically growling with fury. “Now I have no idea where he is. We should go check on Darcy.”

“You don’t think the punk—” Bucky could not wrap his head around the idea that Steve, the ultimate awkward but sweet kid around ladies, could even conceive of being anything other than courteous around an Omega. Where was this coming from?

“You didn’t hear him. He blames Darcy.”

“For the bonding?” Jane Foster cut in, fear and confusion etched into her face.

“For the kidnapping, for being here in the Tower, for everything that is wrong with his life right now,” Natasha said dramatically.

Bucky started to move, but Tony held up a hand.

“JARVIS, has Lewis woken up?”

“No, sir.”

“Where is she?”

“She was last documented in Sergeant Barnes’ bedroom, sir.” 

Bucky sighed with relief, but came up short when he saw that Tony looked confused.

“But where is she now?” he insisted.

“I cannot say, sir,” the AI admitted with a troubled voice. “Security protocol 6598 has been initialized by Captain Rogers, and until he has cleared the queue, I am unable to report further on the situation.”

“Shit!” swore Tony, and Bucky started running downstairs, Natasha hard on his heels. He burst in through the unlocked front door of his apartment, past the living room and through the open door of his bedroom, where the big fluffy comforter was pulled to the side. The bed, like the room and the whole apartment, was empty.

“Oh God,” Bucky gasped. Natasha put her hand of his shoulder.

“We’re going to find her. Take a breath.”

Bucky forced himself to let training take over. He couldn’t afford to give in to emotion now. Not while Darcy was in danger.

Tony caught up to them, Dr. Banner at his side. “They must be somewhere in the building. I’ve got confirmation of Cap using the garage entrance, but he hasn’t left.”

“Let’s find him,” Natasha said, and Bucky coldly nodded beside her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the lack of Steve and the insufficient snuggles. I should not make any more promises until this story is done!
> 
> In fact, I'm just guessing about the seven chapters at this point. Who knows? These dudes aren't letting me make any decisions any more.
> 
> Again, I should edit this more. Maybe I even will. But I wanted to post something, because it keeps me going! 
> 
> I sort of dread asking, but did this chapter work for you? Did it make sense and/or advance the story? I can't even tell at this point! What am I doing? AAAAAH
> 
> (Oh! And don't forget--we haven't heard Steve's perspective yet at all so, just, don't hate me! Yet! I've already written half of the next chapter, so barring unforeseen circumstances it should only be a day or so. )


	6. Chapter 6

“Miss Lewis,” a voice came from nowhere and everywhere at once. “Miss Lewis, please wake up.”

“J?” she muttered unsteadily.

“You are awake?”

Darcy ran a hand through her hair and tried to get comfortable. She didn’t remember falling asleep sitting up. In fact, she didn’t remember falling asleep alone. 

“Bucky?”

Unease jolted her fully awake. Her eyes flew open and lit on her reflection across a wide table from where she sat in a high-backed chair. Her hair was flattened and falling out of its messy bun. The circles under her eyes were dark as bruises. She looked awful, and felt worse. There were two normal office chairs on the other side of the table, but otherwise the room was completely empty. The walls were paneled plastic and there were no visible doors or openings other than the mirror, probably two-way, that hung across from her.

“What the hell?” she spluttered. “JARVIS? Where am I?”

“Miss Lewis, please try not to panic. I fear there has been a misunderstanding. You are currently in a sub-level C interrogation chamber. Now that you are awake I am able to fulfill an earlier request to alert Sergeant Barnes. May I include your location in my announcement?”

“Yes!” Darcy shouted, doubly alarmed by the fact that the AI had sped up his steady voice and dropped it to a whisper.

A panel slid open, and Steve Rogers walked through the door. He was still in his uniform, though he’d taken off the hood and had a leather jacket over it. A wave of fear overcame her, and Steve’s pointed inhale meant it hadn’t gone unnoticed.

“Miss Lewis,” he said, his unfailing politeness unnerving her more than anything else.

“Uhh, hey Captain,” she said haltingly, trying to get unsteadily to her feet. “I don’t suppose you could let me out of here? Bucky said you wouldn’t be mad that I fell asleep in your apartment, but I guess he was wrong, huh?”

She took the steely silence that followed as an affirmative. 

“Please remain seated, Miss Lewis, and we can get started.” Steve sat on the edge of the chair nearest the door, directly across from her. In front of him he held a file folder. He had a pen in his hand that he was clicking open and closed, open and closed. What on earth had she done that was making Captain America so agitated?

“Um, started with what? Last I recall I was having an extremely comfortable nap and—where’s Bucky?” Darcy gasped, how had she even neglected to say that first thing? She scrambled up, leaning heavily on the arms of her chair.

“Is he okay? Where is he? Did you—he said you’d be mad at him, but I didn’t think that was right. Are you?”

“Mad at Bucky?” Steve said, sounding surprised. “No, of course not. I wish he’d been more careful, but this isn’t his fault. It’s mine.”

“How would that be exactly?” Darcy asked, sinking back into her seat uneasily.

Steve leaned back slightly in his seat, but still remained at the edge, ready for action. What the hell kind of action was he expecting from a completely wrecked Omega? Before Darcy could ask again, he spoke.

“I knew something was off about you, Miss Lewis. Maybe not right away, but as soon as I introduced Bucky to the team, suddenly Thor’s bondmate’s intern started showing up everywhere. You barely had anything to do with the Avengers, and from what I understand don’t even come from an Astrophysics background, yet you’ve attached yourself to Dr. Foster like a leech. I guess you were just waiting for the opportunity to make your move.”

“My move?” Darcy was starting to get a very bad feeling in the pit of her stomach.

“I was suspicious when Bucky’s therapy sessions were suddenly moved up to the room next to the labs. I talked to you, but I should have gone further. I should have warned Bucky about you more specifically. I thought I could handle the threat you represented—I wanted him to feel safe.”

“Warned? What? I wanted him to feel safe too, what the hell do you mean—” Steve cut her off with a slam of the fist on the table.

“Don’t play games with me. You know what I mean. How did they smuggle you in here in the first place? Stark promised me no one reached the top levels of the Tower without extensive background checks, so how did you manage to sneak by?”

“‘They’? But they did check me! I had to sign like a mountain of papers and NDAs.”

“Obviously Stark’s people weren’t thorough enough!”

Steve glared at her, and Darcy could only helplessly shrug. Maybe she shouldn’t outright contradict the overzealous patriot in the room, but before moving to New York she had gone through crazy amounts of forms and filing and background checks and people calling her college advisors and third grade teacher. What was Steve talking about?

“With all that Bucky’s been through it’s completely disgusting that HYDRA would send you in here to break the training that they programmed in the first place—bonding him to an Omega to try to control him. Because that’s what’s happening here, isn’t it?”

Darcy gaped, in shock. “You seriously—just because Jane couldn’t get a real intern, and because Bucky’s psychiatrist decided not to make him go to Medical every Tuesday and Thursday because it triggers him—based on those factors, you decided that I’m a HYDRA agent?”

Steve waved away her question. “That’s only the beginning of the evidence against you. Evidence that I was too stupid, maybe too dismissive of Omegas to recognize the importance of. I wasn’t sure until today of course. But as soon as I scented—as soon as I could tell what you’d done—what you made Bucky do—I knew I’d been a fool not to take you seriously.”

Steve’s voice had cracked with emotion, and Darcy’s disbelief evaporated in the face of his sincerity. This man, this ultra-powerful Alpha, fully believed what he was saying. Darcy wanted nothing more than to bolt for the door, but despite how completely wrong the Captain had things, he was Bucky’s best friend, and she had to try to make things right.

“Woah, dude, you’ve got this all wrong! Let’s,” Darcy scrambled to get her jumbled thoughts in order. Her words were her only asset here, so her big mouth had better work for her rather than against her for once. “Let’s see, you said about being an Omega? I was on suppressants—nobody was supposed to know, but I guess you heard Janey and I talking about Omega rights that time, that’s how you knew, right?”

“Yes,” Steve admitted. “Suppressants must be very effective, otherwise I would definitely have known.” He wrinkled his nose. “It’s completely obvious now.”

Darcy frowned, “No need to get rude about it, Cap. But you’re right—they work even on super-Alpha super-noses. Bucky said he’d had no idea until today. Why would I have told you? Why would I have told anyone? I mean, if I was a HYDRA agent sent here to snare Bucky in some fucked up bonding trap I should have kept my head down, pretended to be a Beta, right? Why would I have spilled the beans to you, his bff?”

Steve scowled, but didn’t answer. “If you’re not a HYDRA agent, prove it.”

“Dude, you can’t prove a negative! How am I supposed to convince you I’m not a HYDRA agent, except to say that I have no idea why you think I am?”

“I already told you, Lewis. The fact that you were able to reschedule the appointment location, the ridiculous fact of an Omega working around an elite fighting force comprised of Alphas, your mysterious history which doesn’t check out—I did some digging, and nothing at all adds up about you. You were cleared to return to university after the London incident—but instead you stayed in the UK with Dr. Foster—why?”

Darcy tried to break in with an answer, but Steve just talked over her.

“Not to mention the bizarre circumstances that caused you to attach to Dr. Foster in the first place. Then you were taken along by the kidnappers five days ago—if they had just wanted Dr. Foster, they should have left you behind, or killed you, not dragged you along to give you the chance to bond my best friend.”

Darcy gulped. Steve sounded pretty regretful about her continued existence.

“And now, now that you’ve done this unforgivable thing, we have to decide what to do. I guess there are some medical procedures for this sort of thing nowadays, but in my day, the surest way to break a bond was bleeding out.”

“But that was—you’re gonna kill me?”

“We saw some of this during the war. Nazis would use Omegas in heat to disrupt the troops, sometimes to try to turn officers as spies, other times just to cause chaos and confusion. I’ve broken bonds before. It wasn’t always fatal—maybe you’ll be one of the lucky ones. They asked me to do it because I can smell once it’s done, and a transfusion afterward will give you decent chances of surviving so you can face justice in a court of law for your crimes.”

Darcy was struck with a cold feeling that reason wasn’t going to help her. Steve actually believed that she was an enemy agent. With shaking voice she called out, “JARVIS? J? Can you get Bucky, Jane, Tony, anybody? Please??”

Steve continued to look at her with the cold disappointment of the morally just enforcer. “I’ve disabled the AI in this room. You seem pretty dependent on it. Was that how you got Dr. Foster kidnapped in the first place?”

“No! Why would I get myself kidnapped? Those guys nearly shot me!”

“Obviously so that you could spring your trap on Bucky. Or was it me that you were supposed to target?”

“Whaaaat? You are seriously delusional, dude. Is this a jealousy thing? Some sort of ultra-Alpha possessive bullshit? Just because you’re having feelings about your best friend—”

Steve snarled across the table and Darcy couldn’t stop herself. She screamed, the earsplitting screech of an Omega in distress. 

Steve grabbed her by the shoulder and shook her. He had his determined patriot look on his face, and Darcy had never noticed before how disturbing that expression of unwavering certainty could be. 

“Stop that!” he ordered, standing over her with a scowl on his face.

Suddenly, his hand was torn from her, there was a shattering sound accompanied by a thud, and Darcy was left blinking and struggling to her feet. 

“What. The. Hell.” Bucky’s voice was cold as he held his friend against the cracked glass of the two-way mirror. His metal hand squeezed Steve’s throat.

“Buck, you don’t understand—she’s dangerous!” Steve choked out, squirming out of the hold. He held out his hands to Bucky, trying to calm him down.

Bucky looked at where Darcy stood, teetering and shivering across the room and gritted his teeth.

“You touched her,” he growled. “You took her. I don’t care what the fuck you believe, you don’t ever touch Darcy again.”

Bucky stepped back and held out his hand. Darcy hobbled over to him, hating how weak and pathetic she felt. The strain of the last however many hours was too much for her to handle gracefully at this point

Darcy looked over to the side, where the entirety of the panels making up the wall had slid away. Tony and Natasha stood there, and Darcy thought she could hear the sound of Sam shushing Jane further along.

“What did he do?” Bucky demanded harshly. Darcy would have been offended at his tone—she’d done nothing wrong—but she could feel Bucky’s fear for her reverberating through his body and mind. 

“I don’t even know. One minute I’m tucked up in bed, the next minute JARVIS is telling me to wake up, and Captain America’s evil twin walks in ready to bleed me out so he can ‘save’ you.”

“I can’t fucking believe it,” Bucky muttered. He pulled her against him, his flesh hand running over her face and arms, searching for damage. But he kept his eyes on Steve, fury vibrating through him. “I fucking trusted you Steve! What the hell were you thinking?”

Steve, who’d been all Alpha-concern moments before looked shocked that his best friend and subordinate wasn’t falling into line. “Bucky, you have to see—she’s HYDRA, she’s just using you—”

Bucky pushed Darcy behind him, ready to advance on Steve.

“Don’t,” Darcy urged, trying to order her thoughts around the adrenaline still rocketing through her body. “He really believes I’m a HYDRA agent,” she finally managed.

Bucky stopped.

“Why would he think that?”

“Fucked if I know!” Darcy responded, falling into a fit of jitters. “Some bullshit about me stalking you, changing your therapy sessions, not finishing college. Did he ever finish art school? No. And worse than that, Peggy Carter is freaking dying in a nursing home while he’s been chasing your fine ass around the Eastern Seaboard for a year, but I don’t go around berating him for his life choices!”

Steve’s eyes widened in shock at her audacity and his nostrils flared in anger.

“Tell us how you really feel, Lewis,” Tony said, leaning into the room from the hallway, the tension of the situation coming out in snark.

“Girl’s got a point,” Sam muttered from behind them. Bucky waved a hand to stop them, focusing his entire attention on Darcy.

“Are you a HYDRA agent?” Bucky asked.

Jane started to scoff, but Dr. Banner shushed her so Darcy could look very seriously into her bondmate’s eyes.

“No,” she said.

“Good,” he said, and turned to take her out of there.

“Bucky—wait!” Steve cried, starting after him.

“Nuh-uh Cap, cool your jets,” Tony said, and the panels slid shut, separating them. “That’ll hold him for a minute—” 

Bucky shook his head.

“No. Steve can fucking stay in there until Darcy is good and ready to deal with him. You hear me punk?” He yelled through the plastic paneling. “You can just fucking wait right there.” He turned to Darcy. “I didn’t believe—I couldn’t believe he was so messed up. You tried to tell me, but until Natalia busted in and said he’d run off, I hadn’t really believed he was capable of such shit. Taking you? Why the fuck would Steve—I just, I still can’t believe it.”

Darcy’s heart broke a little at the pain and disgust in Bucky’s voice. She’d never meant to come between the two of them. Even though Steve’s easygoing manner had evaporated around her once she’d befriended Bucky, Darcy had never dreamed that he would go so far as to haul her in for interrogation—to threaten her life. She shuddered, and Bucky gripped her tighter.

Natasha approached at the sound of her name. She looked genuinely worried and distressed.

“Oh Darcy. I’m so sorry—Bucky, I did my best, but Steve is operating under some serious misapprehensions. He didn’t explain his thinking until we were in New York, and then I tried to straighten him out, but he left without listening what I had to say.”

Bucky waved her away. “We’ll deal with it later. For now, I’m taking Darcy upstairs. She needs to rest.”

“I’ll stay with him,” Sam offered. “You take care of Darcy, Barnes.”

“I want to know before any decisions are made,” Bucky said over his shoulder, pausing to glare at Tony, Sam, and Natalia in turn.

“We’ve got it,” Natalia said. “Take all the time you need.”

Dr. Banner had been hanging back with Jane, who looked about ready to explode from the repressed need to hug her friend. Unfortunately for Jane, Bucky’s need for constant contact won out.

Bruce cleared his throat.

“Do you still want me to look Darcy over?”

Bucky glanced at Darcy. She nodded at him slowly and to Bruce she said, “We’ll send you a text when it’s a good time, ok?”

“That’ll be fine,” he said.

“My room this time,” Darcy said firmly to her ride.

“You got it doll.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading!


	7. Chapter 7

With some direction from an uncharacteristically quiet though thankfully still wakeful Darcy, Bucky made it to her apartment. It was located on the floor above his, and he was very relieved to realize that it was its own entity, separate from Thor and Jane’s. It had an entrance a little way down the hall from their place with its own locks and security. He gently set Darcy down so that she could key in her code, and followed after her as she walked through the doorway.

“I didn’t know the Tower had any places this small,” Bucky said in surprise. The door let onto a kitchen/living room/dining space that was as compact as one might expect to find elsewhere in the city.

“Yeah, it’s actually the servants’ quarters for Thor and Jane’s place. Isn’t that crazy? Like, Tony built in a place for ‘the help’ on purpose? I would be offended, but I get to live here for free. It’s still twice the size of any of the other one-bedrooms I looked at in the city, so beggars would be pretty damned stupid to be choosers. And it’s got a huge bathtub,” Darcy said, pulling off the soiled long-sleeve shirt she’d been stuck in since that afternoon. The sun had set long ago in Manhattan, and Bucky tried to add up how many hours of sleep Darcy had gotten. Not enough, probably.

“Do you want to go back to sleep?” Bucky said, trying to keep his mind firmly fixed on the present.

Darcy groaned and rubbed her face with her hands. Bucky started to feel like he was intruding. Unlike all of the other apartments he’d seen in Stark Tower, this one seemed to have been decorated and furnished by its occupant. One wall of the living room was a bright purple color, and the furniture seemed to be a mix of Ikea and scrounged-off-the-sidewalk. There were photographs and books and flyers for shows all over the place, and game controllers sat out on her tiny red-brown sofa that faced the flat panel on the wall which was suspiciously identical to the ones up in the labs. The tiny coffee table was completely taken up with a huge mercifully empty pizza box, and any other spaces on the table were filled in with beer bottles. From the smell, at least one of those was not completely gone. Bucky wrinkled his nose in disgust. There were two spots, so she must have had someone over. Maybe Jane? But it was hard for Bucky to imagine the serious scientist coming over to play video games and drink beer. All he knew was that he’d never been invited to Darcy’s apartment before today.

“I’m gonna take a shower,” Darcy said. “You can have a turn afterward. Let’s get clean first, then...everything else.”

Bucky nodded, and forced himself to let her enter the bedroom on her own. His hands wanted to open the door for her, his instincts urging him to stay close, but he made himself give her space. Thankfully, she left the door open behind her, though whether by design or bad habit he couldn’t say. Being able to see and hear her helped keep him calm. Seeing the wreck that was her bedroom, however, was not exactly soothing. There were clothes and shoes and papers spilling out of her open closet in drifts, taking his mind back to being a kid and getting scolded by his Pop for leaving his school books out. That was probably in what, the 1920s? And that was the last time he’d been allowed to be untidy. Looking at the maelstrom of debris washing over Darcy’s bedroom floor, Bucky’s mind instantaneously provided him with a hundred reasons why he was a bad match for Darcy, up to and including his best friend losing his marbles and kidnapping her out of his bed.

“Calm down!” Darcy shouted from the bathroom. “Jeez—at least let me wash my hair. Come sit on the bed where you’re closer.”

She turned on the water without waiting for an answer, and Bucky figured the least he could do was to follow her directions. The trouble was, there was no place to sit on the bed. It was covered in clothes and shoes and—was that a wet towel that had been moldering on the sheets for the six days she’d been absent?

Course of action decided, Bucky looked around for a spare set of sheets. He finally found some, pushed behind a box of junk on the top shelf of her closet. He roughly sorted shoes into the bottom of the closet and clothes into the basket he was able to uncover on the far side of her dresser. The sheets and towels he put directly into the washer of the tiny laundry unit he found built into a kitchen cupboard. He hurried back to the bedroom and quickly and expertly made up the bed, a double, with the precision of the army sergeant he still to some degree was. He had to use the same comforter, a pink and green flowered monstrosity stuffed with down, but it had fallen to the floor and so escaped the days of wet towel.

Darcy turned off the water, and he hastily seated himself on the bed, trying to look nonchalant. Darcy came out of the shower with a towel already wrapped around her body, squeezing water from her hair with another one. She looked shiny and smelled clean and overall seemed much better than she had just a few minutes before. Still, there were huge circles under her eyes and she was undoubtedly feeling the trauma of the day. Emerging from under her towel, she looked over at him and a tiny smile pierced the clouds.

“Enough with the innocent look dude, I know my bed didn’t make itself.” She walked out into the bedroom, and for a moment Bucky thought she was going to touch him, sit with him, but instead she passed him and turned to the closet, where she’d begun to rummage around.

“There’s got to be a towel in here somewhere,” she muttered.

“Top shelf, far left, under a bunch of other crap,” Bucky offered.

Darcy turned and glared at him, then turned back and grabbed the towel from the location he’d correctly identified.

“I was going to give this to you,” she began. Then she stopped and looked at him, and whatever she saw made her drop the teasing tone and hold the black and white striped terrycloth out to him. 

“Take a shower. I’ll scrounge up something for you to wear—clean, I promise. Though it can’t get any worse than the stuff you’re in now,” she said.

Bucky had to give her that. The trench coat had been abandoned on the quinjet, but he was still in the clothes Natalia had found buried somewhere in the Siberian wilderness. Why hadn’t he changed when he’d been in his apartment earlier? God, he hadn’t been thinking straight this entire day. It was like the second he’d smelled Darcy in heat his brain had liquefied and he’d been left to wade through the mush, trying to keep them safe. And look how he’d done with that. 

Darcy surprised him with a little mock-Alpha growl and shook the towel in front of his nose. He rose and took it and again tried to occupy himself thinking only about the present moment. Even a breath out of order and he’d start to wonder what Darcy was thinking, to try to imagine what to do about Steve and his wild accusations. He snapped his mind back to Darcy’s bathroom, closing the door most of the way behind him and stripping as efficiently as he could. He cleared a large section of her counter by pushing all the junk already on it against the white tiled backsplash and laid out his guns. The knives he kept holstered and hung them along with his clothes on a hook on the back of the door, only empty because the towel that must have occupied it had fallen to the floor in a heap. Bucky’s mind drifted to the pile their clothes had made on the dirty floor of the Siberian safe house. He’d had to gather up all of Darcy’s things from the bathroom there. He should have checked her pockets to see if there was anything she’d wanted to keep before turning them over to Natalia and Steve. Those clothes must have been how Steve figured out about the bond in the first place...

Shower. The curtain was a labyrinth pattern in blue and white with a cartoon penguin in the center apparently trying to make its way out to the happy ice floes that surrounded the maze. Well, that was different. Pulling back the curtain, Bucky could see that the tub was indeed wide and deep, and he wondered why Darcy hadn’t wanted a bath. Then he figured she probably had wanted them both clean and dressed in the shortest amount of time without awkward closeness or questions of intimacy. This was perfectly reasonable, even sensible, but somehow his heart sank at the thought.

Back to the present. The water was still hot and the pressure was excellent. Darcy had six different almost-full bottles of various soaps and shampoos littering the sides of the tub, but the one in the caddy over the shower head was only a quarter full and had a prescription label on it, peeling from the moisture. He picked it up. It was a solution to strip her hair and skin of any lingering Omega scent and replace it with a chemical that suggested Beta scent. He shook his head. This subterfuge in daily life for Omegas sure was extreme. Next to the bottle was a questionably hygienic sea sponge and a rubber duck that served no purpose he could readily come up with. She wouldn’t even be able to reach it up here if she was taking a bath. Bucky looked closely at the prescription bottle. There was a film where the soap had dried over the opening, so he knew she hadn’t used it today. Somehow that made him unaccountably grateful.

Bucky went with the least offensive soap available in Darcy’s shower—a vanilla scented bar with little pieces of what looked like oatmeal all ground up in it. Fucking weird. He turned and rinsed it out of his hair. At some point he must have gotten used to doing it one-handed, because as versatile and impressive as his metal arm was, washing hair with it was still not gonna work. That was something he’d never really figured out—whether he’d taken showers for the past seventy years or just sort of been hosed down by lab technicians when they thawed him. But he knew there were times he’d been awake for long stretches. And he could wash his hair one-handed, so that was proof he’d gotten used to it at some point, right?

Darcy entered the bathroom with a bundle of clothes.

“I’m just gonna put these…woah. Were you seriously carrying all of those? Because that is a lot of guns on my bathroom counter. Like, I’m not sure the poor thing can bear the weight.”

“Don’t touch. The safety’s on, but I wouldn’t put it past you to drop one and manage to shoot me in the leg.”

“Hey, I’ve shot a gun before,” Darcy defended. “Like, several times. Well, one afternoon at the shooting range, but I used up a whole little box of bullets. Or half, anyway. It was when my brother Brandon was going through his ‘Man Phase.’”

Bucky snorted. “What, did he grow out of it?”

“Oh shut up, you know what I mean. A sudden onslaught of wearing plaid, growing a beard, buying a bunch of books on Kindle about butchering his own meat.”

Bucky laughed, despite himself. “That’s what constitutes being a man these days? I think I missed the announcement.”

“Dude, your metaphorical mailbox is overflowing with missed memos at this point. Lucky for you, I’m here to sort you out.”

And there he was again, a surge of hormones had him practically sobbing because he was so fucking glad she wasn’t running, screaming, away from him and all the trouble he’d caused her today. Though his rational mind thought she certainly ought to be asking Dr. Banner about that procedure. Which reminded him—

“Darce, did you drink any water yet?”

“Um, kinda been a little distracted from good hydration practices today.”

He pulled the shower curtain back a little so he could see her, and embarrassed, she whirled around to face the mirror. Which was, of course, reflective, so Darcy’s blush was met with a raised eyebrow from Bucky that made her look like she wanted to melt into the tile. She closed her eyes.

“Go get a glass of water. Not soda or whatever sugar syrup you kids always seem to be guzzling down these days. You need at least six pints before you’re back to normal.”

“Yes, Dad,” Darcy said, cringing at her own words and trying to exit the bathroom hastily. Her eyes were still closed, so she bumped into the door on the way out, dislodging his things from the hook. They clattered to the ground.

“Oh, shit, sorry!” Darcy said, scrambling around, trying to pick up the gear that had fallen. From the sharp sound of metal against tile, a knife must have come out of its sheath, and with the way things were going today, he couldn’t risk Darcy hurting herself.

Bucky jumped out of the shower, pulling Darcy’s arms back from the tangle of clothes and straps and weaponry he’d polluted her completely normal bathroom with.

“Stop, doll, just...stop,” he said desperately. Darcy went completely still in his arms, even though the water was still running and he was getting her soaked by holding her so close.

He reached around her and picked up the fallen knife. He hadn’t been being paranoid, she had been reaching for it blade-first under the pile of clothes. Carefully he dug out his belt with the sheath and put it away. He checked the others to be sure they were secure and set everything to the side, on the floor this time. Darcy remained still and quiet against him, the tshirt and soft pants she was wearing warm and damp against his skin. Suddenly she shivered.

“Oh no,” Darcy said. “Oh not now. What time is it?” she asked.

“The thing above the stove said nine-thirty,” Bucky said, confused. “Is something supposed to happen?”

“No, but how long has it been then? Since we last... I mean since you…?” Darcy ran her hands through her wet hair and took a deep breath. Bucky did the same. Oh. She was starting to exude pheromones again.

“I don’t know…” Bucky turned his mind back to the timetable of the day. “We finished getting cleaned up at about 5 pm in Siberia. Then we spent three and a half hours getting to the train, another half hour on the train and then around...five hours on the jet? That got us here about eight hours before we left, then we had to talk to everybody and went back to my place. Maybe another half hour there. You were there for about two hours and then…” Bucky swallowed tightly. “You were missing for almost an hour.”

“Blah blah blah, more than twelve hours?” Darcy prompted, nudging him with the back of her head.

“Yeah, a little more,” Bucky said. She must be starting to go into the next phase of her cycle. What that was after bonding, Bucky did not know, but he did know that she hadn’t wanted to be close to him, had chosen quick showers and shapeless pajamas. He backed away from her with supreme effort and turned off the shower. Darcy was still curled into a little ball on the floor, so he turned and grabbed the towel he’d left on the edge of the sink and quickly dried and dressed in the pj pants and tshirt she’d laid out for him. The pants fit, so they must have been huge on her, but the tshirt, though old and soft, was difficult to get over his arms and stretched out across his chest a little uncomfortably. Still, it was the least he could do to try to set her at ease. Bucky closed his eyes, and breathed.

“We don’t...just because I lost control before, it doesn’t mean that I don’t have any. I of anyone should be able to tough it out if you don’t want to—I mean, I know a lot has happened today. I can just—be in the hallway.” Bucky had no idea what his tortured tongue was trying to get out with that exactly. He wanted to let her know that if she wasn’t emotionally ready to get physical again, he’d deal with it, whatever their bodies were saying. It would be hard, and he might not be able to let her see anyone else for the next couple days, but he could do it. Would have to do it, if that was what Darcy needed.

Darcy picked her hands up from where they’d been covering her eyes. 

“Is that what you want to do? Spend the next 48 hours-plus pacing around my front door?” She looked at him piercingly.

“No,” he said honestly. “But I’ll understand if that’s what’s gonna happen.”

She scrubbed her eyes again with her hands. “Ugh, this is just so much. We haven’t talked about—well, anything, and I’m tired and starving and crampy and your best friend who you love dearly thinks I’m a HYDRA agent hell-bent on destroying you.”

Bucky turned away, his hair falling over his face from where he’d slicked it back in the shower. He sighed unsteadily.

“I’ve been trying not to think about it.”

“Yeah, I can tell. Every minute or so you get all...tense, and then you reset yourself. It’s pretty impressively regimented. But Bucky, we’re going to have to deal with all this stuff. Rogers isn’t gonna stay downstairs forever.”

“Yeah,” he said softly. “I know.”

Darcy sighed now, and got up from the floor. She stepped out of the bathroom and made it over to her bed where she unceremoniously flopped down.

“Ah, my own pillows, how I missed you,” she said.

Bucky trailed after her as far as the bathroom doorway. Darcy looked up at him, and reached out a hand toward him as she’d done earlier. He barely hesitated, letting her grab his hand and pull him onto the bed next to her. As if he could resist any overture she made. Darcy pushed and prodded him until he was lying next to her with his arms around her and she had her head nestled in the hollow of his flesh and blood shoulder. She inhaled against his shirt and nuzzled him softly.

Bucky didn’t know where this was going, but he tentatively rubbed her arm and squeezed her back. At least her muscles didn’t seem as tense as they had earlier. He shifted, pulling away from her.

“One minute,” he said, getting up and moving to her kitchen where he rummaged around for a clean glass, finding one in her dishwasher that he rinsed out to be on the safe side. Her fridge had filtered water on the door so he used that to fill up the glass and brought it to her in bed.

“Drink,” he commanded. Darcy looked at him with a raised eyebrow from where she lay on her side. “Please,” he begged.

Maybe she could see how important this was to him, because she sat up and drank the glass down. He returned to the kitchen and refilled the cup, holding it out to her again. She looked at him skeptically but took the glass from him and took a slow swallow.

“Are you seriously going to make me drink six glasses of water right now?” she asked.

Bucky shrugged. “As many as I can. You’ve gotta be seriously dehydrated, and if you’re going into another part of your cycle you’re really gonna need it. No matter—no matter how you decide to deal with it.”

Darcy hummed, and continued to drink the water until it was gone. He took the glass and refilled it again, but when he handed it to her this time she took a small sip and put it on her nightstand, pushing some papers off to the side to make room for it. Bucky tutted and grabbed the papers she’d pushed aside, along with a notebook that was about to fall off the edge and straightened them, placing them upright on the shelf below where she kept a jumbled collection of books. He itched to straighten them as well, but Darcy was looking at him, so he met her amused gaze.

“So, army training, huh? This is gonna be interesting. No offense, but I never once in my entire life considered that I might fall for someone in the armed forces. Nothing against it—just so very not me.”

He didn’t respond—couldn’t really, with the way his throat went tight. He knew she was saying that they were incompatible, but Bucky got stuck on the easy way she said “fall for”. Was that how she thought about him? Was she able to, even after everything, consider their bond as coming from a place of love? Darcy reached for him again, and again, of course, he followed her gentle tug back into the bed. This time she arranged her mountain of pillows—he’d had to dig around to find a grand total of six clean pillowcases so not all of them matched—and leaned him back against her side.

“I don’t—” she started, then took a deep breath and tried again. “I can’t deal with all the stuff that happened today right now. I just—there’s too much there, and it’s nighttime and my body’s getting all geared up for making me crazy with heat stuff. I just want to have relatively quick, mind-blowing sex and go back to sleep, on repeat for the next few days, maybe with some snacks slipped in there somewhere.”

She turned that looked at him squarely. “But I know we’ve got to deal with Steve—find out what is going on in his head and why and try to resolve this somehow. We’ve got to talk about how we want things to be between us, what you want to do, how you want to live, what’s going to happen with all those guns on my counter when I go to brush my teeth again—plus a zillion other things I haven’t thought of yet.”

She paused, and Bucky swallowed, tightly. “I hear you, doll. I mean—you’re right. There’s a lot—a lot of stuff. I’m doing better but I’m pretty messed up, and probably always will be, so there’s that, on top of all of that other stuff to deal with. I know I’m probably the last guy any sane Omega would actually pick to bond with—”

Darcy smiled slightly and punched his side with her little fist. He caught it when she tried it a second time, and held her hand gently in his.

“But I’m serious, I’ll try to do whatever you need me to do. As much as I possibly can, I just want to be with you and there for you. If that means sorting out all this shit, then yeah, it’s gonna take a while. But we’ll do it.”

Darcy nodded into his side and wrapped her arms around him, hugging him tightly. 

“But I can’t do it tonight,” she sighed, and he felt more than sensed in any other way the wave of heat and lust and pheromones rolling off of her head. At such close proximity, it was dizzying.

“Is it okay, then, to just sort of put everything to the side?” she wondered. “Like, I know we must talk and handle it, but will we get back to it if we just sort of ignore it for right now?”

Bucky sighed. “It’s how I get through every day.”

Darcy looked at him closely. “But will we get to it? I don’t—I don’t want to start this with so much hanging over our heads. It’s too important. This is the rest of our lives here—” she gulped and shivered. “and I want to make good choices.”

Bucky shifted so that he was sitting up, and Darcy rolled up to sit next to him. He took her hands, one in each of his, and smiled ruefully.

“I can’t pretend it’s all just gonna take care of itself, doll. There’s so much—sometimes I feel like I’m just gonna get sucked under and never be able to breathe again. But I’ve been trying, and being around you and everybody else here has been helping. Working with the doctor helps. I can’t promise it’s gonna be perfect or that all our choices will be good, but I can promise to try.”

Darcy looked up at him, tears in her big blue eyes, and blinked her long dark lashes a few times.

“Okay,” she said breathily. “Okay, sounds good. Deal with shit later. Jump you, now.”

And with that declaration she swung her arm around his side and pressed him back into the pillows, straddling his hips and leaning down to kiss him. He hadn’t been expecting this sudden change from earnest discussion to hardcore making out, but he wasn’t complaining. Honestly, he was finding it much easier to set the events of the day aside now that he had something concrete to focus on.

Bucky surged up to meet her, and the tangle of arms and legs and hair sorted itself into a rhythm that seemed to work for both of them, if her little gasps and cries were anything to go by. She kissed around the side of his face and nipped his ear, causing him to growl and flip them over so that Darcy was the one pressed into the wall of pillows and he was looming over her. He took a quick look to see how she was with that change, but a hitch in her breath and a moan gave him the idea that she’d liked it, maybe a lot.

Darcy met him in a series of increasingly tortuous lovebites across his neck, pulling aside his collar and going right across his metal shoulder. He frowned at her a little, and she shrugged, “Still tastes like you,” she panted. Somehow this, more than anything else, got him going, and he peeled off her still-damp tshirt so that he could pay proper attention to her breasts, which as she had intimated earlier that day, were absolutely glorious. God only knew what he had done to merit such an incredible dame, one so fun and loyal, who not only had her head on straight but was so fucking gorgeous...he forgot where he was going with that thought as Darcy impishly slipped her finger through one of the little holes in chest of the the old tshirt she’d given him and ripped it straight down the front.

Shocked and aroused, Bucky helped her destroy the collarband as she ripped upward and peeled the cotton fabric off his shoulders. Darcy let out some sort of keening Omega sound, and Bucky redoubled his efforts to get her out of her clothes. Her purple drawstring pants were easy to pull down, though he stopped for a minute to admire the cut of her underwear with the little foxes printed all over them. God, her ass was as amazing as the rest of her.

Slipping out of the pants she’d given him, Bucky reacted in a haze. Even though she had to be exhausted, Darcy eagerly pressed her back against him. He pressed forward, urging her to lean over her mountain of pillows and let it support her weight. She didn’t have a headboard and for a minute Bucky was concerned that the bed might not be up to dealing with their exertions. Oh well, they’d deal with it if it became a problem. Bracing his hand against the wall, Bucky carefully aligned himself and slid into Darcy.

“Uhhh, yes!” she cheered, “I can’t tell you how much I needed that. Heat is nuts, I am telling you!” Bucky laughed and gave up on the wall and wrapped his arms around her, hugging her to him as he began to move inside of her.

“I can think of worse things,” he murmured.

She shifted suddenly, turning her head over her shoulder and pressing her forehead against his.

“Don’t,” she said seriously. “Not right now.”

Bucky nodded, surprised by the tears that sprang to his eyes at her words. This was now, Darcy was here, and he was absolutely going to make her come before knotting her and riding out the aftershocks. He’d succeeded earlier that day, and no way was he going to backslide in his first time with his bondmate. Reaching his metal hand up to cup her breasts—the pressure registered, even though it wasn’t the same as flesh and bone, exactly—and with his other hand he snaked down, causing gasps and trembles as he reached through her soft and springy hair to find her clit. 

“Press back, doll, relax,” he urged, trying to get her to release her muscles and allow for deeper pleasure. Tensing up was no good—it would make it a lot harder to enjoy what was happening. 

“I’m trying. Just—stay still for a second,” she commanded.

He stilled, and Darcy carefully thrust back against him. She moaned, and he took that as his cue to move again. Keeping his pace slow, he gently nudged her with his hand, and she pressed back into him with a sigh. Meeting her, they built a better rhythm. He pressed against her, from without and within, and let Darcy control the speed, which she ramped up until he was gasping and panting and she reached one hand back to grasp at his hip and urge him on. She was crying out at every stroke by now, saying his name, encouraging him and commanding him and all around bossing him around and if he could just keep it up she would probably—-there, Darcy’s breath caught and she let out a louder version of that keening cry and he couldn’t take it, she was so hot and perfect.

His knot swelled, and Bucky’s teeth found the groove they had carved in her skin earlier that day, and though his body was urging him forward he didn’t want to hurt her again.

Somehow Darcy seemed to sense his hesitance.

“Do it! Don’t worry—I’m fine,” she gasped.

That was enough for him, and he bit her, again tasting the tang of her blood and feeling the swirling pleasure that rose between them. His own release washed over him while his eyes closed in wonder at all of the sensations that surrounded him. Was this Darcy? Was this what she was feeling? Another sharp squeeze from her body pushed aside the wonder with more pleasure, and Bucky tried to catch his breath, then gave up and flopped, panting, beside Darcy on the pillows.

They stayed tied together, and Bucky fell asleep before receding enough to part from her.


	8. Chapter 8

The next day had long since dawned, but since Steve Rogers had spent the night in a holding cell deep underground he had no way of knowing exactly how much time had passed since his best friend had turned on him and locked him up. The cell was comfortable, at least, and even spacious, but there was no hope of getting out on his own. He had helped design it to hold those with enhanced abilities and had tested it himself. Sam had convinced him to stay down there. A show of good faith, he’d called it. After a few attempts to get him to talk, Sam had left him in the furnished cell to sleep on the situation.

“Time Out’s over, Cap,” said Natasha, materializing at the entrance, which was similar to an airlock, admitting the captors through an antechamber equipped with a scent-cancelling apparatus and a two-way mirror to enable the kind of surprise entrance the Black Widow had just executed.

Steve sat up from where he’d been lying on the floor, too keyed up to fall asleep on the comfortable bunk on the other side of the space.

“Is Bucky ready to talk? I don’t understand why I’ve been left here all night—”

“You don’t understand?” Natasha looked at him seriously. “After the way you assaulted an innocent Omega—your best friend’s bondmate for goodness’ sake? And this isn’t a talk, it’s an interrogation. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“I didn’t assault her! I barely touched her—just tried to get her to stop making that awful sound.”

“A sound she made because she feared for her life.”

“She was never in danger—I scared her a little to try to get a confession, and then of course that’s when everyone comes storming in,” Steve grumbled.

Natasha glared at him, hard. “Do you think Bucky’s going to be any more forgiving because you only meant to make her think you were going to hurt her?”

Steve slumped.

“But that can’t—she has to be HYDRA!” Steve wrapped his hands around his head. “The sessions, and her name isn’t anywhere, and she kept following Bucky around and she’s—she’s a political science major—nothing adds up!”

Natasha walked past him and slid down to sit with her back against the white wall next to her team leader and friend.

“So, Bucky’s therapy sessions being moved, something about her name, Darcy’s lack of astrophysics training, and the fact that she’s attracted to your friend. Anything else?”

“Yes! No, I don’t know!” Steve rubbed his hands with his eyes. “I was so sure! Why is no one else even considering this as a possibility?”

“Paranoia doesn’t suit you, Rogers. If there was something to be found, don’t you think people with better research skills than a guy with two years’ casual experience with Google would have found it?”

Steve flinched, but Natasha continued levelly.

“You were convinced that something was wrong with Darcy, though it sounds like you’re not so sure anymore. You’re telling me that you were suspicious for a long time—so why didn’t you ask someone about it? I knew from talking to Darcy that you didn’t like her, especially after you barred her from coming to team poker night, but I hadn’t heard any of your reasons until yesterday.”

“I tried to say something to Stark, to ask him about her clearance levels, but he just made some stupid joke...” Steve trailed off and looked away, gritting his teeth.

“About you being jealous?” Natasha asked neutrally.

Steve’s answering growl was telling. He swallowed, and continued speaking.

“And then I tried to talk to Sam, but he seemed to think Bucky talking to girls again was a _good_ thing. Nobody was taking me seriously.”

“And you didn’t stop to think that this was because you were wrong?”

“If there was no reason—if she wasn’t HYDRA, why was Darcy always hanging around Bucky?” Steve asked in exasperation.

Natasha raised one perfect red brow. “Did it never occur to you that even after all the trauma he suffered, that someone who hadn’t known him ‘before’ could still be attracted to your friend, could still fall in love with him?”

Steve winced. “That’s not it. Bucky—he’s, he’s gone through so much! No one today can possibly understand what his life was like, growing up and during the war. Doesn’t he deserve a little time—”

“Darcy is actually particularly suited to understand his history, in a way. You’d know that if you’d successfully looked into her background. And doesn’t he deserve a partner, if he wants one?”

“But—but he’s _mine_!”

Both red brows rose this time, and Steve rushed to qualify that statement. “Not—not like _that_! Just, he’s my friend. My person. He always looked out for me—before. And now that I have him again it’s up to me to look out for him and not let him get trapped by some girl.”

“I slept with Bucky.”

Natasha threw this out there as matter-of-fact-ly as everything else. Steve reacted like a grenade had been thrown, skittering away and turning so that he could look her in the eye.

“What? When? He said—he said people were just talking!”

“It was many years ago. Part of my training in the Red Room. For the most part.” Natasha brushed a stray hair away from her face, the only sign that she might be uncomfortable speaking about this part of her life. “Our backgrounds were similar—there was a certain amount of understanding between us at the time. Now, I’m not even sure how much he remembers.”

“Oh, gosh,” Steve gulped. “I’m—I’m so sorry. That must be really hard for you—”

“Ha!” said Natasha, stretching out a finger toward him. Steve jerked back, blinking. 

“When I told you I’d fucked your best friend because HYDRA made me, as well as because I felt like it, you immediately felt sympathy. Darcy didn’t have quite the same circumstances, but one could say she was similarly coerced by her biology. Why do you only feel anger and resentment toward her?”

Steve frowned, but answered readily. “That’s different—she’s different. So brash and weak and snarky and obnoxious, she can’t even shut up like an Omega is supposed to—”

“So this is definitely about me being an Omega,” Darcy said, stepping out from where she’d entered the room earlier in the conversation. Steve visibly reacted to her presence, the myriad information in her scent making Steve instantly feel ill. He gagged, but tried to cover it with a cough. Darcy observed his reaction with interest.

“Ah, Darcy, there you are,” Natasha said.

Steve looked between Natasha and Darcy weakly, and started to get to his feet.

“Stay where you are, punk.” Bucky stepped out from the antechamber directly behind Darcy.

“God, Natalia, did you have to say that?” Bucky grumbled. Bucky was looking at Darcy for any signs of distress, but she waved away his concern.

“What? It was an apt comparison,” Natasha defended.

“And it’s not like you hadn’t already talked about the testing thing,” Darcy reminded him. “Besides, from the number of ladies claiming to have been your girlfriend before the war I’m gonna go ahead and conclude you weren’t pure as the driven snow even then.”

Bucky opened his mouth to say something to that, but Steve glared at Natasha.

“Did it even happen then?” he growled. “Or did you just make it up to mess with me?”

“I warned you that this was an interrogation,” Natasha reminded Steve, not answering his question. “I think everyone else might as well come in at this point. She rose and the white wall they’d been leaning against slipped back to reveal the observation room beyond. There was an optional transparent panel to protect onlookers that wasn’t up today—a sign that most everyone still trusted Steve, or at least trusted those present to subdue him with minimal damage.

Tony, Sam, Bruce, and Clint represented the Avengers, and Jane sat a few seats apart from the others, perhaps solely supporting Darcy in this. Bucky led Darcy over to sit beside Jane. Darcy was much more together than she had the previous day, clean and fed, but she still looked tired and unwell.

Natasha pulled up a chair from the other side and offered it to Steve, grabbing one more and setting it beside him. At least he wasn’t completely alone.

“The gang’s all here,” Steve said wryly. “Is this some sort of trial?”

Sam sat forward and took the lead as they’d discussed. “It might be better to think of it more as a mediation session. Or maybe an intervention. It’s up to you. Something’s been bothering you, and much as Bucky would like to work it out personally, this is something that affects the whole team, so we decided it would be better for everyone to be in on the conversation. But don’t worry, Tony’s not supposed to talk.”

Sam smiled, and Stark glared at him from where he sat, one row back, with his feet up on the chair in front of him. He rolled his eyes and kicked Sam lightly in the shoulder with his sneaker, but stayed silent.

There were a few beats of silence while Bucky fussed around Darcy, moving her chair back from the lights, and making her take a drink from a bottle of water, but she finally grabbed his hand and pulled him down into the seat next to her. Bucky wanted to look anywhere but at Steve, his heart clenching at the thought of having to interrogate his best pal, and for such a fucked up reason. 

They’d had a busy morning already. Bucky had woken up at 4:15 am with the mental clarity to engage in some prudent delegation. He’d gotten on the phone with Clint, Dr. Banner, and Natalia and organized a delivery of food from four different places that Clint swore Darcy liked and he could convince Tony to pay for, a tentative diagnosis of a UTI and an even more tentative plan for dealing with Steve. The last depended on input from Sam and Darcy once they woke up, but it put his mind at ease enough to send Bruce out for cranberry juice and a prescription and formulate a plan of attack for Darcy’s filthy apartment. 

Getting shit done had felt good, and it had definitely been worth it when Darcy awoke at ten in the morning, rolled her eyes at her sparkling countertops laden with sashimi and green curry, and tumbled him back into bed with her for the next hour. She’d finally eaten and drunk, protesting at the cruelty of unsweetened cranberry juice ruining all of her pleasant Thanksgiving memories, and then they’d turned their thoughts to Steve.

Bucky had wanted to deal with things himself, but Darcy had surprised him by wanting the others in on any confrontation. 

“They need to know we’re being up front. And you guys are the Avengers, you need to trust each other, not have secrets behind each other’s backs.”

Now they were here, and Bucky thought he’d really prefer not to have an audience so he could more easily take a swing at Steve if it became necessary to pound some sense into that thick skull.

Darcy sensed Bucky’s hesitancy, and spoke, up, just exactly as an Omega was not supposed to do in Steve’s book.

“So. Steve. Captain Rogers. I would say nice to see you, but last time you were ready to ‘bleed me out’, so...not really.”

“I wasn’t going to hurt you,” Steve said lowly, scrubbing his face with his hands. He opened his eyes and looked around at his friends and teammates.

“Is this—are you guys really sure this woman isn’t a HYDRA agent?” Steve said, looking from Natasha to Sam to Clint and finally settling on Bucky.

“Yes.”

Bucky’s tone was cold, and Steve could tell he was one stupid remark from getting the shit beat out of him.

“Dammit,” he muttered, and dropped his head forward onto his hands.

Sam tried to break the tension.

“So how about you tell us why you thought Miss Lewis was an enemy agent, and we can sort of clear the air here?”

“Darcy doesn’t have to explain anything to him,” Bucky said frostily.

Darcy put her hand on his arm, rubbing it up to his wrist and forcing his fist to unclench so she could hold his hand.

“It’s okay. I don’t care. Not like all you super-spies don’t have a zillion files on me anyway,” she said, turning to Steve with a raised eyebrow. “Which they probably would have let you read if you’d asked, so I’m assuming you didn’t bother.”

Steve growled slightly, and Darcy rolled her eyes.

“So go on, big guy, take your best shot,” she said.

Steve took a breath to get ahold of himself, then straightened. This was his chance. If there really was something off about Darcy, he couldn’t let her get away with it now.

Darcy withdrew her hand from Bucky’s and folded her arms across her chest. Bucky wondered if it was too cold for her down here. Darcy was wearing a red top with long sleeves, but it was a little low cut for Bucky’s liking under the circumstances. He should have gotten her to wear a sweater.

“I met you after Dr. Foster came to work for Stark Industries,” Steve continued, “though I’d heard something from Thor about her having an intern. There was no crossover on her projects with the Avengers Initiative though, so how did you end up in contact with my team?”

Darcy looked around the room. “Wellll, like you just said, I already knew Thor—who is gonna be hella pissed about this when he gets back by the way so just wait loser—”

Jane nodded fiercely beside her. Bucky stifled a reflexive growl that Darcy might be looking to someone else to protect her, reminding himself that she’d been riding on Thor’s influence for the past couple years. It was natural that she’d consider him a protector. Bucky still didn’t have to like it though. Darcy was still talking, and Bucky tuned back in.

“And I’d already met Clint in New Mexico with Agent iPod thief, so when Stark hired Jane, he came to visit and between the sciencing and the hanging out it didn’t take long to meet the rest of you.”

“But why were you working for Dr. Foster in the first place?” Steve said impatiently. “The file—which I did read, by the way—said that you were a political science student, with no background in astrophysics.”

Darcy glanced at her boss. “You wanna take that one, Janey?”

Jane waved her hand. “She was the only applicant,” she said, still a touch embarrassed at her terrible reputation of yore.

“But that doesn’t explain why you applied,” Steve insisted.

Jane looked to Darcy, eyebrows raised in question.

Darcy sighed. “Yeah, I’ll tell him, I’m pretty sure Steve and Bucky are the only ones who don’t already know this stuff anyway,” she said in response to her friend. “I’d just had an, umm, unfortunate social situation come up on campus...Well, I was outed as an Omega, if you must know...and it seemed like a good idea to get out of Culver for a while. I applied for everything that would get me some science credits and out of town for a semester.”

Bucky nodded. “That Beta in the band?” he asked.

“Um, yeah,” Darcy sighed. “Turned out not to be so great after all. He couldn’t keep his stupid mouth shut about my typing. Story of my life, guys.”

She looked up at Steve. “So that’s why.”

“But why did you stay with Dr. Foster after you completed your internship? It was only supposed to be for a semester, correct? And after everything in New Mexico, you followed her to Tromso and even to London!” Steve couldn’t see why everyone accepted this as a logical course of action.

Darcy shrugged. “I’d never been off the continent,” she said. “Well, except for that one trip to Paris, in high school, but that hardly counts, right? Plus, I couldn’t leave Jane in the lurch when she was embroiled in intergalactic guy troubles.”

Steve raised his eyebrow.

“She’s my friend, dickwad,” Darcy spit. “You’ve been tearing the social fabric of our nation apart for the past year to get Bucky back by your side, but I don’t see why you should have the monopoly on friendship.”

Tony stifled another sound.

“But, after London,” Steve retorted, “there’s a note in your file that specifically said you’d been granted permission to return to school, and that you only had three courses to take before graduating. The situation with the Dark Elves was resolved, and Thor was back on Earth. Why would you have stayed in England?”

“Oh,” Darcy said, shifting away from Bucky and sharing a glance with her friend. Bucky was suddenly very curious about the unease Darcy was projecting.

Jane’s eyebrows rose. “Darcy, you don’t have to answer that,” she said, smothering a smile.

Darcy’s eyes shifted to Bucky but she replied to Jane, “Nope, I’m going for it. Whole truth and nothing but the truth, right guys?”

She leaned toward Steve with an oddly amused expression. Bucky braced himself.

“Well, I was all set to return to Culver, but then there was a most unexpected turn of events.”

Darcy’s voice had gotten all suspenseful, and Jane couldn’t take it anymore and cracked up, covering her mouth with her hands.

“Oh god, Ian!” she giggled despite the tense situation. Darcy also started laughing, though the way she squirmed away from him made Bucky nervous.

“Ha!” Darcy huffed out between gurgles of slightly hysterical mirth. “So, you asked why I didn’t return to school last year, even after I got SHIELD approval.” She tried to get serious, but utterly failed, cracking up as she admitted, “It was for the sex.”

Bucky’s eyes went wide. “I thought you just told me you’d never been with an Alpha or a Beta either!”

Jane was laughing in earnest now, somehow his reaction had put her over the edge.

“No! She hadn’t!” Foster got out. “But then, miracle of miracles—”

“Bwahahaha! The intern’s intern!” Darcy was shaking. She swallowed, and her voice was slightly hoarse, but she kept talking. “I located that rarest flower—the Omega guy who was actually at least somewhat interested in ladies! After my complete lack of success in all matters sexual thus far in my life, I wasn’t going to give up on that one in a literal half-million chance—not until I’d given it my best shot, anyway. Aww, Bucky, don’t worry, it didn’t work out. Seriously, this was all over before I even moved to New York, but yeah, I failed to finish school on time because of Ian.”

Tony broke in, “Woah. Omega-Omega heterosexual relationships are so rare they’re practically nonexistent. What was that—?”

“Oh crap, I guess Tony didn’t know either. Nuh-uh Stark. I’m not kissing and telling,” Darcy said, still laughing, though she looked a little guilty at Bucky’s disgruntled expression and mouthed, “Sorry.” Bucky waved away her apology.

Bucky was not best pleased, but he could hardly say anything after the stuff Natalia had been spouting earlier. And she was still on his team, perpetuating rumors of their involvement for her own nefarious purposes. This Ian was at least out of their lives, half the world away.

Clint looked over at Tony in disgust. “For that, man? For that you broke your ‘Stark’s Honor’ vow of silence? I thought for sure we could make it until we started talking about Darcy’s family, but you couldn’t even make it past the intern’s intern situation?”

“That was less than ten minutes, so you owe me twenty bucks,” Sam said to Clint with a shake of the head. “And, Tony’s giving us all a raise.”

“Yay!” said Natasha with a wry smile.

Bucky leaned forward in his seat.

“You satisfied yet, punk?” he said gruffly.

Steve leaned forward in his seat. “C’mon, Buck, something’s not right. I can—I can smell it. Something is wrong here.”

Bucky covered his face with his hands. Steve could be so damn stubborn. They were going to be here all day at this rate. Darcy must have sensed his frustration, because she shifted her body toward him once again and reached out for him. He took her hand and gave it a squeeze.

“We can stop whenever you want, Darce. He’s the one who should be answering your questions anyway. You haven’t done anything wrong.”

Bucky’s throat closed a the thought that Steve really had crossed some lines that can’t be uncrossed. Sure, he’d convinced himself that Darcy was HYDRA, but he’d still gone completely behind Bucky’s back, and refused to listen to anyone else on the team.

Darcy squeezed Bucky’s hand back. “It’s okay. I’m not doing it for him. I want us all on the same page so we can figure this out.” 

“And you like the sound of your own voice,” Stark added.

“And I like the sound of my own voice.” Darcy turned to Steve.

“Anything else you want to know, Cap?” Darcy asked with a sigh.

“Yes,” said Steve heatedly. “There’s no birth certificate for a Darcy Anne Lewis in the early 1990s anywhere in Mercer County, and that’s where she said she’d been born on her college application,” Steve said earnestly. “She told us her family’s lived in Princeton her whole life, but I looked for a Darcy Lewis in Princeton as well, and found nothing. She’s clearly lying about her origins.”

Natalia looked at Steve pityingly. “Did you honestly think that we would let someone set foot into this building without verifying such basic information? I mean, yes, it’s possible to forge database entries, but a big fat question mark like that would never go unchallenged. Do you think we’re a bunch of amateurs here, Rogers?”

Bucky cleared his throat.

“What’s the deal then?” His question was stuck halfway between Natalia and Darcy and after earlier revelations Bucky was unusually uncomfortable with that.

Natalia nodded to Darcy with a smile, and she opened her mouth and closed it a couple of times. Bucky gripped the arms of his chair in fear.

“You weren’t—you aren’t married?” he said.

“Whaaaaat? No, no no no I am wayyy too young for—” Darcy shut her mouth with a snap and blushed brightly. “Erm, no. That is absolutely not what is going on here so just pull the emergency break on that train of thought right this minute.”

She twisted her hands around in her lap.

“I just, maybe felt like changing my name. For, reasons.”

Tony laughed uproariously. “Uhoh Lewis, about to be outed after all those pains you took. Or should I say Darcy—”

“Don’t say it!” hissed Darcy over her shoulder at her boss’s boss. “You ass! I can hear Clair Bergen’s obnoxious six year old voice ringing in my ears already.”

“Now now Darcy,” said Tony, practically giggling into his sleeve. “Honesty in relationships is extremely important! You wouldn’t want to get your bonding off on the wrong foot.”

“No way! I signed all those name change papers your harpies in the HR department kept parading past my desk for the first month of working here. The agreement specifically said that no one, including you, Stark, could refer to me by my former name.”

“Oh come on, Lewis, it isn’t that bad.”

“Whatever! I’m not ashamed! I just...wanted to start over with a life where nobody knew I was an Omega and nobody was gonna start chanting...something that ends in ‘fart-ski’.”

Bucky was definitely listening now. Ignoring Steve’s imploring puppy-dog “notice me Bucky!” eyes, he turned in his chair to face Darcy. “C’mon, I believed you when you said you weren’t HYDRA, but now with all this funny business coming out...well, I guess you’d better tell me so I can sleep at night knowing I’m not gonna get stabbed in the eye.”

He was totally joking, but Darcy’s face got really serious. She leaned over and whispered in his ear, “Darcy Barsky.”

Bucky tried not to laugh, but it didn’t really work. That was pretty bad.

“What the hell were your parents thinking?”

“I know, right? I hope that’s the first thing you ask them, those assholes! My mom says she thought everyone would call me ‘Darcy Anne’ but that didn’t exactly fly in central Jersey,” Darcy’s brain caught up to what she had said previously and amended, “I mean whenever in the far distant future...if you do happen to…crap.”

“I’ll definitely meet your parents, doll.” Bucky smiled at her discomfort.

Darcy coughed and tried to cover up how pleased she felt at that. “You are definitely going to live to regret that,” she muttered. She had turned all the way toward Bucky, ignoring everyone else as she continued her tale.

“ _Anyway_. That name set me up for a long and obnoxious childhood that culminated in me going into heat in first period Chem class. The teacher, Mr. Hinkle, was also the football coach, so he was an Alpha, and thankfully I guess, he grabbed Josh Kramer who’d already dived for me. They got into this knock-down, drag out fight and the school nurse was rushed upstairs and had to take me out the back and drive me to my house. It turned into this huge ordeal, because parents who have reason to think their child might be an Omega are required to disclose it to the school, but my folks and both my siblings are all Betas, and all my grandparents too, though I have one great aunt who’s an Alpha. Usually they notice that you’re kind of a late bloomer, but my Mom swears she didn’t even consider the fact that I might not be a Beta, she just figured I was going to be flat-chested like the women on my Dad’s side of the family, and she never picked up on...other signs.

“They were supposed to keep my name out of the papers because I was a minor, but my parents were called up before the school board and it was this huge kerfuffle. Then Mom and Dad kept insisting that none of us had done anything wrong, so to prove their point they _kept me in the same school_. All through high school. My life was a living hell as the only out Omega in the entire county school system. By the time college admissions rolled around I applied with my Mom’s maiden name. When I got into Culver I decided that was it, Darcy Barsky was no more.”

Bucky snickered again when she said the name, and Darcy looked at him in fury. Even the tips of her ears were red.

“Hey, Darce, calm down. It’s not a big deal. People I grew up with changed their names all the time. Hell, if not for Ellis Island names I’d be James Bărbulescu.”

“Yikes, really?” asked Darcy. “Wow, I have been subjected to I can’t tell you how much Howling Commandos trivia in my comparatively short lifetime and I have never heard that one before. What nationality is that?”

Bucky was suddenly quite curious as to why that might be. Was she reading up on him? Somehow though it didn’t sound like her experience was voluntary. He responded quickly.

“Well, I was born here, so I was always Barnes, but my family came over from Romania right before the Great War.”

“Really?” Steve looked pitifully like a kicked puppy, fascinated and horrified that he hadn’t known that about his best friend. “How could I have missed that? You never said—”

Bucky shrugged. “C’mon Stevie, you remember what it was like for immigrant families back then. The faster you could lose the names and accents, the better. Becca and I never even learned more than a few words of the language. My older sister would sometimes try to teach us a little, but my Pop would go off on her, telling her she was ruining our chances of having a good life by tainting us with the old country. I never really cared much one way or the other.”

“Wow, my Dad is gonna lose it!” Darcy said.

Bucky stopped and looked at her closely.

“Why do you say that, doll? Why should he care?”

Tony laughed, and even Jane and Dr. Banner smiled. What did they all know about Darcy’s family?

“Uh...reasons...that are not really pertinent to this discussion. Unless Steve wants to say something else to crush his reputation.”

“Crush my reputation?” Steve asked in confusion. “Why should all this have anything to do with me?”

Something about his tone really hit home with Darcy, because she practically snarled the next part.

“Oh, I don’t know, you only threatened to cut me open and bleed me dry like you did to Omegas being used by the Nazis during the war. That wasn’t exactly in the bio worked up by the Army for the Smithsonian exhibit.”

Steve looked imploringly around at the others, but this was the first most of them had heard of this unpleasant part of Steve’s duties as the super-Alpha of the European Theater, and it sounded pretty bad the way Darcy had put it. The stony silence looked like it was crushing the guy, so Bucky finally caved.

“Nah, doll, he wasn’t gonna kill you.” Bucky sighed and ran his hand through his hair. “Steve volunteered to do it back then because he could tell when a bond was broken and stop before they died, not that life was gonna be so great for a German Omega in an Allied prison camp. But still, none of em died. He always got it right.”

Steve’s brow furrowed. “I don’t remember talking to you about it.”

“You didn’t have to. I hated that you did it, because it always messed you up afterwards, but I could never say anything, because back then I couldn’t admit that I could do it too.”

“You mean, you could tell when the bond was broken.”

“Yeah,” Bucky sighed, “I could.”

“Because of the serum,” Steve said slowly. He clenched his jaw, trying to keep it in.

Bucky could have let him, but hadn’t Darcy said “the whole truth and nothing but the truth”?

“Just say it punk. Spit it out.”

Steve clutched his head, and for a second Bucky thought he was just going to ignore it for the next seventy years. But then the dam broke.

“Jesus, Buck, why didn’t you tell me? If I’d had even the slightest hint that you could have survived that fall I would have jumped off that train after you—none of this would have happened! I wouldn’t have—made some of the terrible choices I made, and you would have been fine! No metal arm, no brainwashing! I thought you were my friend—my _best_ friend. Why didn’t you trust me?”


	9. Chapter 9

Bucky felt Steve’s torrent of questions like a punch to the gut. He could answer them, was bound to answer them, but would his relationship with Steve survive it? Maybe he should have just let the issues sink back under the surface. Darcy grasped his hand, and he felt strength gather. He had to deal with this, for Darcy’s sake. His therapist had thus far mostly helped him cope with the trauma of his years with HYDRA, but they had both acknowledged that there was some stuff from the war that he was gonna have to come to grips with before he could ever truly be free of the horror of his life thus far. But to let it out to Steve in such a fraught situation? Bucky was no longer worried about it coming to blows, really, but how could this go on?

“I did trust you. I just...it was a hard time for me. You seemed so happy, so fulfilled, to finally be this big guy in charge of everybody, with all these other people orbiting around you. But I wasn’t...the war wasn’t like that for me, and pretty soon after I figured out what was the matter with me I decided the best thing was just to keep my head down and try to get out of there alive.”

“But you didn’t! And if you’d just told me, you could have.”

Bucky spread his hands out in front of him, palms up. What could he say? He had known for a year now maybe that it was coming, but it was still painful. Steve had been his anchor, his line to the past that didn’t involve mindless slaughter. Could he really jeopardize that relationship by admitting that things had never been as rosy as Steve had believed? Darcy must have sensed his overwhelm, because she scowled at Steve and said,

“Hey, rein it in, Rogers. Yeah, it hurt your feelings. But you can’t know how things would have turned out. Maybe Bucky was right not to tell you if you’d recklessly endanger your mission for him. Aren’t you supposed to be some kind of strategist? Maybe we’d just have had Winter Soldiers A and B and everyone in the world would be pledging allegiance to HYDRA every morning.”

Bucky turned to Darcy, gently squeezing her hand. “Hey doll, you don’t have to defend me, if anybody here has a right to be upset, it’s you. What Steve did, kidnapping you and trying to interrogate you—that was way out of line.”

“Oh, it was! But he was doing it because he’s as good as claimed you.”

Bucky’s eyebrows rose. “What? Nah, Steve and me—it’s not like that, Darcy.”

Darcy looked at him patiently. “Claimed doesn’t mean that. These terms came into usage after you were...not around anymore, but they mean really specific things. I said claimed, not bonded, and I know what it’s like for you, I can feel it. But, especially now that I’ve been off suppressants for a few days, I can also feel...everything else. God, why does being an Omega have to suck so much?”

Bucky looked at her in confusion. “Whaddya mean?”

“Well...I don’t know exactly. I’m still figuring it out. I’ve been on suppressants for ten years, but even so, as soon as anybody found out I was an Omega, I would get all this shit, like I was supposed to know how they felt, like I was responsible for everyone’s emotional wellbeing. I thought it was just a stereotype. And maybe it is and I’m just imagining all this stuff? Or maybe there’s something to it.”

Bruce Banner shifted in his seat and tentatively said, “There is definitely something to it, Darcy. I don’t know how much you’ve read about it, but Omegas who aren’t being restrained by suppressants are rated extremely highly for empathy, which operates on a level that isn’t fully understood by science yet. There’s been a lot more research into the ways that scent impacts Alphas, giving them certain information that others aren’t aware of, and that they often don’t know how to process consciously. But Omegas seem to have at least as much of an advantage, and you’re right about it being overwhelming. There’s got to be a reason Omegas have historically been isolated from the general population. Even in societies where they were given a higher degree of autonomy than during our country’s history, monasteries and convents have always been filled with Omegas. Emotional information overload has been put forward as a theory for why they might tend to avoid public life.”

Darcy nodded tiredly. “I could believe that. It’s just rushing in over me, and I can’t really keep it out. For one, I can tell you were lying about the whole always angry thing, dude. Nobody can keep that up constantly.”

Bruce smiled. “That was maybe more of a philosophical statement, Darcy.”

“Whatevs, liar. Tony, you are a mess. Get more counseling. Nat, I just noticed something that we are totally going to girl-talk over later. Jane—I already knew you missed Thor but you’ve gotta work on your coping skills, lady. Clint, you are totally right, but also kindof an asshole. Sam, you seem to have your head screwed on straight. Don’t give up, we’ll get to the bottom of this and then you can see where things go. Now everybody, tone it down. You guys are superheroes. Meditate or something.”

This report was met with raised eyebrows, but Darcy looked so tired that nobody challenged her.

Bucky shifted, since she was looking at him next. She smiled at him wanly, and he hoped they could wrap things up soon so that Darcy could get some more rest. She was still in her heat cycle, even if it was satisfied for the time being, and it was killing him to have her here in this enclosed space full of other Alphas. She should be more careful with herself, especially if all this emotional stuff was overwhelming her. She was still sick. They should’ve just left Steve down here for the next couple days until she was feeling better. He could take it. Darcy’s smile grew steadier, and Bucky felt such a wash of love and affection that he had to close his eyes for a second. Was that their bond then? Was that how she felt about him? Or how he felt about her? Or was it all one in the same, a mishmash of scent and hormones and genetics and attraction? Were those just fancy ways of talking about love? Darcy leaned into his shoulder, rubbing her face against him quickly before taking a deep breath.

She turned to Steve. “And now you. It’s hard to even be anywhere near you now. I sort of wonder if this was part of the problem, even back when I was on suppressants. You are so...like, curled in on yourself in pain. I am pretty freaked out about what you did, don’t get me wrong. Kidnapping me while I was sleeping is a new low, but you are so clearly not okay.”

Darcy inhaled, and leaned forward in her seat. “This is definitely partly a claiming thing, right Sam?”

“It seems that way,” Sam said uncomfortably. “I mean, it could—nah, let’s not go there. But the way Steve has been driven to find Bucky, to get Bucky safe, it’s gotta be something like that. Alphas are driven to protect whatever they’ve claimed, whether it’s objects, territories, or people. But we’re not animals, we can differentiate between people and stuff, and we all agree that everyone has the right to make their own choices. Still, that can go against an Alpha’s instincts, and things can get...messy.”

Darcy had a thoughtful expression on her face. “Can you admit that you considered Bucky to be yours?” She asked Steve, whose eyes were screwed up with discomfort.

Natalia intervened. “He’s already said as much earlier. You heard him. ‘My person’, he said.”

Sam coughed. “It’s unusual, of course, for one Alpha to try to claim another one, especially if they’re the same age and not related. Most times that leads to dominance fights, whether they’re straight-up physical or more like mental manipulation.”

Darcy nodded. “But this is a little different case, since before Steve thought of Bucky as his, it was the opposite, right? When you were kids, Steve was really sickly despite being an Alpha, and there’s letters, from Bucky’s mom to her sister, talking obliquely about a ‘recent tragedy’ that seemed to cause her kid to adopt a tiny Alpha and his mother and now there was not much to be done but take care of them. It really bummed her out though, since she didn’t seem to think much of Steve’s chances for survival, being in and out of the hospital a lot like he was.”

Bucky’s eyes widened.

“You’ve read something like that?” he asked.

“Yeah, I mean, anybody can. It’s in...I think maybe the University of Chicago archive? No, it definitely was, because I remember going to Wrigley field, and miracle of miracles, the Cubs actually won. My brothers got into this hotdog eating competition and were sick the entire next day though. That part sucked. Anyway, was that when Steve’s Dad died?”

Steve flinched, and Bucky coughed. He wanted to ask Darcy a million questions—why had she been reading his Ma’s personal letters on what sounded like a family vacation? But she gave him a little shake of the head, so he just obeyed and answered her question.

“Nah, that was probably after my sister Livvie was taken away to the sanitorium. She was maybe 14, so I would’ve been what, nine? We were friends for a couple years at that point, but since we were so little it was mainly Livvie taking care of the both of us. Steve’s Dad died way before that.”

“Your sister?” Darcy’s eyebrows rose. “You had an older sister? Huh.”

“She was so nice,” Steve cut in. “Not at all like—Livvie was just what an Omega ought to be. She was an angel. She was definitely too good for Brooklyn.” He turned to Darcy. “Do you know what happened to her?” He sounded more hopeful and interested than Bucky had heard him thus far today. But then his eyes turned skeptical again. “You seem to know an awful lot about us, Miss Lewis.”

Darcy held up her hands. “Through no fault of my own, dudes. This part really is a coincidence—I swear. So I’ll come out with it: my Dad is the Dugan scholar for World War II studies, particularly focusing on the Howling Commandos and their influence on the European theater. He teaches at Princeton where he’s been trying to avoid being roped into becoming the chair of the history department for like, fifteen years now. Dude has solid avoidance skills, I’ve gotta give him that much. But he organizes the biennial Howling Commandos conference, and was asked to co-curate the recent Smithsonian exhibition. BTW, he’s still getting letters about that suit you stole. It’s kind of hilarious, actually. Nobody wants to ask for it back, but the insurance companies won’t reimburse for the loss, and everyone’s accusing everyone else of doing or not having done something. Maybe you could at least like, say, ‘hey I’m keeping it’ so they stop harassing my Dad for ‘letting it be lost’.”

Bucky’s eyebrows had risen. Well, this was an interesting turn of events.

Steve nodded slowly. He looked like he was preparing to speak, but Darcy kept on going, allowing him no point of entry into her monologue.

“So I, maybe more than most people, can understand that you’ve been ripped out of one world and shoved into another. But it shouldn’t come as a big surprise that sort of catastrophe is gonna be hard to handle. No, there’s something else going on here. You can barely even look at me. The very smell of me is ripping you up. And I don’t think it’s just the fact that Bucky bonded with me. I don’t even think it’s really me. What is it that I represent, for you?”

“I don’t--nothing. You’re just Foster’s assistant. And now you’re Bucky’s…” Steve trailed off, not even able to say the word ‘bondmate’.

Darcy stood up from her chair and stepped toward where Steve was standing in parade rest. “So you were supposed to see a psychologist, right?”

“I decided not to go. What good could come out of rehashing all this stuff? And how could anyone born after the war really understand me?” Steve returned.

“Fuck that, Rogers.”

Darcy approached Steve, and Bucky rose and took a quick step forward.

“No.” Darcy looked seriously at her bondmate. “If you trust me, you’ll stay exactly where you are.”

Bucky sunk down and gripped the arms of chair he was sitting in so hard the metal began to scream under the grip of his metal hand, but he gritted his teeth and stayed still. At the heart of it, he did trust Darcy. And for better or worse, he trusted Steve.

To Steve she said, “Look, I’m not very into the whole-Alpha-Omega thing determining your destiny. I’ve obviously had some hangups with handling the ‘natural’ side of being an Omega. I’ve hated the idea that because I have some built-in handle on other people’s feelings, that I’m somehow responsible for their shit. So I can see why you’ve pushed back against the lone Alpha thing. I can see why you’ve pushed against the Omega-as-trap thing. But I think both of us have to accept that this is part of us. Not all of us, it doesn’t define who we are, but it is a part of us.”

She held out her arms. “So.”

She took a deep breath. “You and me, Rogers. Prepare to hug it out.”

Darcy looked like she wasn’t one hundred percent sure that this wasn’t going to be the last thing she did, but perversely Tony’s shocked inhale and Jane’s warning “Darcy!” in the background made straighten her spine, all the more determined to stick to her guns. Before even super-soldier reflexes could evade her, Darcy stepped forward and embraced Steve.

He stood there, rigid, for a good minute. He didn’t do anything, and the natives were getting restless in the peanut gallery, to mix a few metaphors, but Darcy held firm, and after the amount of time that it must have taken Steve to finally give in and draw a breath, a breath that had to be full of the scent of herself and Bucky and heat and bonding and all kinds of things that Steve only wanted to ignore, Steve started to shake. Darcy moved her arms, pulling Steve’s head down so that he could rest it on her shoulder.

“Who was it?” she asked. “Was it your mother?”

Bucky, who hadn’t been able to keep back completely, heard and muttered, “No way, Sarah was a Beta. I’m sure of that.”

But Steve just took in another juddering inhale, and said in a small voice. “My dad. My dad was an Omega.”

Darcy had sensed that this was the right track to pursue, but this was huge. She hadn’t been kidding, Ian the hetero-flexible Omega was seriously so rare that she couldn’t expect to encounter another like him in her lifetime.

“They covered it up. He wore lots of cologne, I remember that much, and Mom said that nobody knew exactly what a male Omega smelled like anyway. But my mom told me, when I was in the hospital after an attack. I was eight, and they thought I was gonna die. She told me she was so sorry, that she’d loved my dad, but that it had been a huge mistake for a Beta woman to try to have a baby with an Omega father. That was why I was so...that’s why I was always sick. Maybe if I’d been a Beta, or an Omega like him, but Beta mothers and Omega fathers...they don’t make good Alpha babies.”

This was true. It was borne out by scientific fact that certain crosses were more likely to present with diseases that could weaken immune systems or create other problems. Nowadays with the acceptance of alternative lifestyles, it was perishingly rare to find an Omega man in a committed relationship with a Beta woman, but in cultures where that was the only option for them there were always documented cases of birth defects among children typed as Alphas.

“Oh, fuck, Stevie,” Bucky said. This was far and away more shocking than Steve not knowing his family were immigrants. This explained so much about Steve, and about Sarah too. That woman had clearly loved her husband and son, but had always seemed so guilty. They had never known why. Darcy held onto Steve and flicked her fingers at Bucky to keep him back.

“When did he die?” Darcy asked.

“When I was little. the year before I met Bucky, so I was, what, six? We moved to Dumbo after my dad died, and Bucky lived right down the block. He was...he was everything an Alpha was supposed to be, even as a little kid. He was big and strong, quick and clever but above everything, kind. I knew if I had to be an Alpha, I wanted to be just like him.”

“So you let him claim you, even if it went against your instincts,” Darcy encouraged.

“I was so young it didn’t really bother me. There were a few times when I got older that it...chafed...but by then we were like family. I could never have let something like dominance fights come between us.”

Darcy nodded. “So you hung around with him, and he let you, because you weren’t a threat.”

“And cause you were such a crazy little punk,” Bucky said. “He was so funny. You would have loved it, Darce. He was so clever and cutting, and talented, with the drawing and everything.”

“Yeah,” said Darcy sadly, “I bet I would have.”

“So your Dad. What else do you remember about him?”

Steve’s brow furrowed, thinking back. “Not much. He worked as a photographer’s assistant. He liked it, I think, but he kept it up because the chemicals...they masked his scent. He was very careful, very clean. He wasn’t a small person, I don’t think. He was taller than my Ma, anyway, but very thin. I think, I think I look a little like him.”

“You do,” Darcy said decisively.

Steve pulled back, his eyes open wide.

“There are pictures of him, in the Princeton Archive,” she said. “There might not have been, but he was a model for the photographer he worked for on some ad campaigns. He was...super hot, but way more lanky than you, Captain Beefcake. We can look at pictures sometime if you want. My Dad will totally fall all over himself to fulfill any wish you might have, so I don’t have to be there. Maybe just don’t tell him about the planning to cut me open part,” Darcy said, her voice turning caustic on the last part.

“I’m—I’m so sorry Miss Lewis,” Steve said, and Bucky could tell that this last bit had finally pierced his stubborn hide. “I was never going to hurt you, but you must have been scared to wake up like that—I wasn’t thinking. It’s—I never know now, who’s the enemy. It used to be so easy, see Adolph Hitler, punch him in the nose. Now, I hardly ever have the whole picture of what I’m doing. Who am I fighting for? Have I just turned into the bully I wanted to save everybody from?”

Darcy tightened her arms. “You are the only one who can figure that out. Yeah, I was scared. But the scariest part was that you would just decide, all on your own, without listening to anyone. Even Bucky, your best friend, and you would just cut him out of that decision.”

“I only did it to protect him—” Steve said.

“Not really though,” Darcy insisted. “Bucky was fine. In the long and short term, I wasn’t going to do anything you couldn’t have sat down and talked to us about.”

“I thought—I thought I was going to lose him. Like before. Like Mom, like…”

“Like your Dad, like Livvie, who were Omegas too. We never really brought good things into your life, huh? Or at least, you focused on the loss part. Which is natural for a child. This isn’t out of nowhere, Steve. There are real issues here. But you’ve got to make the choice to work on this. Both the Omega thing..and your own bonding.”

“No,” Steve said, pulling away and stepping back from her. “I can’t--not that.”

“Okay, not yet,” Darcy said, but Bucky could tell that she had a whole overload of information pertaining to that situation too. This emotional shit sure was tiring.

Bucky sighed. Steve was looking uncomfortably down at the floor, and the others in the room started to talk among themselves in hushed voices. No one had seen that coming, though now that the secret was out, Steve’s family history made a lot of sense. 

Darcy looked over at him and smiled faintly, uncertainly, but then her expression morphed into one of pain. Bucky reached out for her, and she doubled over, collapsing. Bucky had her in his arms before she hit the floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has been sitting there mostly done for many months now, so thanks to those who've commented lately and spurred me to kick myself into gear. I've been paralyzed by 'what if I let everybody down who are expecting things to go/be treated a different way?' Well, I'm posting it anyway. This is just how this particular story goes, though if you care to re-read, you'll see I've edited some things earlier on to change the tone a little (I hope it works, if you are reading the whole thing for the first time I'd be particularly interested to hear your thoughts.)
> 
> Thank you for reading, hopefully the conclusion will get tidied up soon.
> 
> edited to add some extra stuff about Steve's dad situation at the end to make it more clear! (I hope!)


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just FYI for anybody who cares, yesterday I added a little to the end of the previous chapter to make a few things clearer about Steve's Dad and his motivations. I don't think it really effects much of what happens here, but I thought I'd mention it.

“Oh God, Darcy,” Bucky crouched down so he could look into her contorted face. Jane stumbled over a chair, but was right there as well.

“Darcy? What’s the matter?” Jane demanded of Bucky when Darcy’s only response was a groan. He wanted to snarl at her, to push her back, but she was so clearly concerned for his bondmate that he forced himself to answer. 

“She’s been feeling bad since yesterday—I asked her if she wanted to get checked out, but she was so tired she said she just wanted to rest.”

Dr. Banner approached, and knelt by Darcy. 

“Did she start the antibiotics already?” he asked. 

“This morning,” Bucky answered. “Hours ago. Shouldn’t it be working by now?” Bucky asked anxiously. He placed his artificial arm on Darcy’s head. “One hundred four point one,” he said desperately to Banner as soon as the information filtered into his mind.

“Let’s get her upstairs to medical,” Bruce said, and Bucky couldn’t do a thing but gently take Darcy in his arms, flinching when she cried out. 

He easily matched Bruce’s sprint, taking care to keep his movements controlled so that he wouldn’t jostle Darcy. Jane followed along after them, and Bucky could hear Natalia and the others hurrying along behind them. Steve’s desperate mental state faded in light of Darcy’s shallow breathing. Natalia would let him know if there was a problem with Steve. He could trust her to do that much.

Stark had the elevator ready and waiting in the moments it took to arrive at its doors. Bucky would have preferred the physicality of running up the stairs, but the smooth ride of the elevator was the better choice for Darcy. Dr. Banner was there, taking Darcy’s pulse and looking at her pupils. Stark had prevented the rest from taking the same elevator, which Bucky appreciated. They would slow him down.

The door opened on the medical floor, disorienting him as he had thought it was on a different elevator bank. Stark must have switched the elevator car over somehow. Bucky flinched back from the sight and sounds of the white coats and the medical machinery. He took a step backward, then forced himself to meet the eyes of the lady doctor who stood breathlessly before the elevator. He’d met Dr. Cho before and her nonthreatening Beta scent he could tolerate with far less trouble than that of the Alpha nurse at her side, waiting to place Darcy on a stretcher.

The presumably capable competent nurse waited for Bucky to hand Darcy over to him, but in that space the man inhaled and took a step back.

“Bonded, recently. Female Omega still in estrus.”

“Dammit, I’m a surgeon, not a dynamics specialist! What does Stark want me down here for? Bondmate’s name?” Cho griped, eyes running over the Starkpad before her that presumably contained Darcy’s medical information.

“Uh, definitely him.”

Dr Cho looked up. Her eyes widened in recognition. “The Winter Soldier? Dammit, Stark, you didn’t think to mention that at least?” she asked of the building at large. The woman smoothed her straight dark hair away from her face and took a deep breath. “Okay, it’s Bucky, right? I’ve heard that you don’t like the medical facility, but we’re going to try to keep this as easy on you and Darcy as possible. My name is Helen. It’s fine for you to call me by my first name, if that will help you focus. Can you put Miss Lewis down on the gurney yourself? The straps are simple, just the top and bottom ones will do.”

The nurse stood back deferentially, and motioned for Bucky to set Darcy down on the stretcher. There was a tense beat. Bucky inhaled and let the information wash over him. The Alpha nurse was bonded, to a Beta who also worked in medical. Bucky could smell her faintly down the hall. Cho was unattached and had last eaten that morning, pancakes with maple syrup. He tried to focus on the humanizing details he could make out. These were real people, good people, who were here to help Darcy. He knew they were not the dispassionate white coats of HYDRA, but it was still difficult for him to get a handle on his fear. He stepped forward and gently settled Darcy onto the gurney.

They moved Darcy down the hall, Bucky carefully and precisely pushing it behind Dr. Cho. By the time they were settled in a room, the Alpha nurse had been changed out for a Beta woman, and Bucky appreciated the consideration, though it was likely protocol done to prevent any dynamics-related issues breaking out in the medical bay. Dr. Banner told Dr. Cho about his tentative UTI diagnosis. She was scolding him for having gone around the medical department for antibiotics, since the infection had likely progressed into her kidneys.

“Oh God, I should have come sooner,” Bucky stopped and tried to swallow around the lump in his throat. “Darcy kept saying she was gonna be fine, but I knew something was wrong. I just didn’t want to…”

“To end up here?” Dr. Cho asked bluntly. She sighed and returned to her more soothing bedside manner. “When did you instigate the bonding?”

“Yesterday...approximately 1000 hours Eastern Standard Time,” he replied.

Dr. Cho’s eyes widened. “So this is a new bond, only a day old?” She glanced at Dr. Banner. “I’m amazed you can have her down here at all. We would have come up to your apartment you know.”

“This was faster—we were already out taking care of another issue.”

“On your first day of bonding?” Dr. Cho shook her head. “That is so far from best practices…”

Bucky shook his head, self-recrimination overwhelming him. If he had just let the issue with Steve alone for a few more days, Darcy wouldn’t be in this danger. Bondmates were supposed to focus only on each other, at least for the first few days. That much had been made clear in the reading he’d done, and even his spotty cultural education had backed that up. He’d just wanted everything resolved with Steve before moving onto deepening their bonding, and Darcy had told him she could handle it, but wasn’t she as awash in his emotions as he was in hers? Had she really wanted to deal with Steve this morning or were those just his selfish desires echoing through their bond?

Dr. Banner stepped in. “This bonding was unplanned and occurred under emergency circumstances during a rescue operation. Miss Lewis had been out of the Tower six—well, seven days ago now, experienced unsanitary conditions, and went off of her oral suppressants unwillingly.”

Nurses were bustling in and out, pushing Bucky back politely while they hooked Darcy up to various machines. He gritted his teeth when one grabbed her wrist to insert an IV needle. Dr. Cho glanced back at the Starkpad in her hand. “I see the note about her suppressants, but why wasn’t she on the injection? There’s no note about the reason. Does she have a clotting disorder?”

Bucky coughed. “No, um, I don’t think so. She said, well, she said the shot gave her acne. So I don’t think there’s any underlying…”

Dr. Cho’s eyebrows rose. “And she was doing fieldwork? That is highly irregular...Why on earth would her superiors allow this?”

Dr. Banner stepped in again. “Darcy isn’t an agent, Dr. Cho. She was abducted along with her boss, Dr. Foster. She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Bucky winced. You could say that again. He was making a mess of Darcy’s life, dragging it through all the shit that encircled his pathetic existence.

Darcy mewled, and Bucky jumped forward, wiping the sweat from her forehead.

“Hmm, maybe not entirely wrong,” she said wryly, surreptitiously eyeing Bucky’s tight black pants. “Whatever the circumstances that led to it, the new bond is undoubtedly causing a drag on her immune system. Is Miss Lewis still in heat?”

“Yeah,” Bucky said. “She said she’s only had one other one in her life, so she didn’t know what to expect in terms of length.”

“Only one..well, that much is normal, anyway. Most Omegas stick to their suppressants religiously until they decide to undergo bonding, though it usually takes more than one try. I’m assuming it did take in one in this case?”

“Um, yes,” Bucky said.

Dr. Cho nodded and resumed her perusal of the Starkpad. “Hmm,” she finally said. “She’s not responding to the fluids as I’d hoped.” Her eyes drifted from the tablet. “So this bonding is new...was it Omega blood, Alpha saliva?”

Bucky nodded tersely, not wanting to let his mind slip back into that moment, not when everything was going to hell around him. Still he felt his cheeks pink slightly.

“Saliva is an inferior bonding substance, making it much more difficult for the Omega partner to solidify the bond. In fact, they’re the only type that can. Everyone else has to use blood. But there’s no reason Omegas shouldn’t find blood easier to use anyway. If we could speed it up, we’d likely have better luck getting her infection under control. Would you object to trying?”

She looked at Bucky. Panicked, he looked to Dr. Banner. “No! Absolutely not!”

He breathed in, trying to get himself under control. “You know the serum? They tried to duplicate it from my blood. I can tell you—they never once had success with my blood. They had another formula—but mine was no good. I don’t wanna hurt her,” Bucky was practically whining with distress.

Dr. Cho’s eyes widened. “Well that certainly explains a few things but that is so totally over my clearance level, I’m just going to pretend not to have heard. All I can tell you is, whatever was done to you was done to your whole body, not your blood in isolation. If the initial exchange of fluids worked for Darcy, the blood isn’t likely to cause her any further trouble.”

Bucky jumped up and paced around the room.

“But what if it did? What if this—what if I did this to her?” He could feel a panic attack rising in his throat. He was trying to breathe, to keep it in for Darcy.

Dr. Cho and Dr. Banner were exchanging worried looks.

“Bucky,” Dr. Banner said, “There’s no reason to think that this bond isn’t healthy. Darcy seemed to have normal symptoms of a urinary tract infection. They were just exacerbated by the stressful state her body was in.”

“Yeah, in because of me.” Bucky pressed a hand to his forehead. “I did this. But why? I don’t even know how it’s possible that I lost control! You don’t know. Have you read the file? Do you know how many Omegas they forced on me, trying to trip me up? Hoping I’d bond one and they could hold her over me, maybe. It never worked. So why? Why now? Why should this poor girl get stuck with me?”

Darcy stirred on the bed, and for once, Bucky couldn’t even attend to her. The guilt of having caused this problem was crushing him. Floating in through his lungs, drowning him from the inside out.

“What have you guys been doing to Bucky?” Darcy asked, her voice gravelly. She looked around wearily. “Oh. Medical? Is that it? We could totally have gone upstairs, Bucky—we can still go—I can make it—”

Darcy tried to swing her legs off the bed, but Bucky was there this time to stop her. He gently tucked her back into the bed, trying to calm himself, trying to keep it together for her.

“What’s going on?” Darcy asked, and while Bucky waited a minute to see if one of the doctors would step up to the plate for that one, he knew she was really asking him.

“It looks like you have a kidney infection,” he said quietly. 

“And?” asked Darcy swallowing a sip of water offered by an observant nurse who received a glare from Bucky for her trouble. Bucky grabbed the cup from her resentfully and held it out to Darcy again.

“And,” he tried not to let out the sob that was pent up in his chest at the words. “The stupid fucking serum in my body might be messing you up.”

“Wait, am I gonna turn into Super Darcy? Because that would rule.”

Bucky cast his eyes to the side, too wrecked to speak.

“Oh, I guess not. But wait—why do you think this? Because of a UTI gone wild? I was seriously sleeping on some pretty questionable straw at one point on this kidnapping jaunt. It had definitely seen better, less horsey days. Why do you think the serum would suddenly to make it hurt when I peed? Why wouldn’t it present some other way?”

“Those are excellent questions, Miss Lewis,” Dr. Cho chimed in. “And ones that we need to address with your bondmate. If you were successfully bonding outside of this infection, I see no reason why accelerating it would cause problems.”

“But what if it wasn’t—what if my blood could hurt her?” Bucky whined.

“Ohhh,” Darcy said. “You were gonna give me a blood bond but Bucky freaked out about this UTI thing?”

“It’s a goddamned kidney infection Darce. People die from these things,” Bucky growled.

“Oh, not very often anymore,” Darcy said. “I think you should do it. I wanna be Super Darcy. Whee.”

Darcy closed her eyes and waved her arms around a little bit like she was flying.

Bucky raised one eyebrow. “Is she on something?” he asked.

Dr. Cho shook her head. “Just antibiotics and IV solution. The antibiotics aren’t having their intended effect yet. The infection is still progressing. Once she’s more stable we can give her something.” Her fingertip was poised over her Starkpad. “So you are officially declining the blood exchange?”

Bucky looked between Dr. Cho and Dr. Banner, then turned to Darcy. “I don’t know! You really think it would help her?”

He advanced on them, and Dr. Cho took a step back. “More to the point, can you promise it wouldn’t hurt her?”

“Well,” Dr. Banner began, “It would probably have the effect of levelling out some of the emotional distress she’s been feeling. Steve’s upset hit her pretty hard earlier. And there’s no reason to assume that interaction with your genetic material is what’s causing Darcy’s infection.”

Darcy’s eyes opened and focused on them again, and she struggled to sit up.

“Ha!,” she said. “I know it isn’t. Because I first got that burning pain thing while we were still in that gross dungeon. So that was way before sexytimes with Bucky. I’ve got to be okay,” Darcy reasoned.

Dr. Cho nodded. “Well, unless you decide to take this step, the most we can do is aggressively treat her infection. See if you can get some rest, Miss Lewis. It will help your body focus on fighting the infection.”

“‘S ok with me,” Darcy said tiredly. “All I want to do is sleep right now, anyway.”

Bucky turned away from the doctors, and waited until Darcy’s breathing had quieted to let go of her hand. Her eyes were closed and though her breathing wasn’t quite as even as it ought to have been she seemed to be sleeping peacefully. He pulled a chair up to the bed and got as close as he could to his bondmate.

Dr. Banner and Dr. Cho had stepped outside the room and were arguing. Bucky ignored Dr. Cho’s attempts to get Dr. Banner to convince Bucky to try the blood bond, instead focusing on Darcy and all the myriad things he’d done wrong since extracting her to that Siberian safe house. He could have done a hundred things differently, most obviously he could have kept his teeth to himself and allowed Darcy to walk away from their encounter.

Still, even though he definitely regretted the trouble he’d caused her, he couldn’t quite bring himself to regret the amazing feelings of love and support he’d been graced with as a result. She was his bondmate, and regretting the fact still wasn’t going to help her at this point.

There was a stillness in the hall, and Bucky’s nostrils flared involuntarily, providing him with information that wouldn’t have been available otherwise. Oh great. It was Steve. Bucky didn’t deign to look up as his traitorous best friend entered the room. Who’d decided letting him in here was a good idea? Bucky inhaled again. Oh. Natalia. So much for placing trust in old comrades.

“Uh, how is she?” Steve asked, sounding so much like his normal good-guy self that it made Bucky’s heart hurt.

“Pretty fucking bad, no thanks to you.”

Steve approached, kneeling on the ground beside the chair where Bucky sat, an attempt at submission that wasn’t exactly winning him any points after the last couple of days.

“I’m sorry,” Steve said. “I didn’t—I really thought I was doing the right thing. This whole time I’ve just been trying to protect you—but this time I really screwed up.”

“She’s my bondmate, Steve. Did you think, even if she was HYDRA, even if you were right about everything, did you think you could just break that bond without even asking me and I’d thank you for it?”

Steve winced. “No, I—I wasn’t exactly thinking straight. I wanted you to be safe, for them to finally leave us alone.”

“That’s never gonna happen, Stevie. We live here now. Everybody’s gone. Well, almost everybody,” he said, not quite daring to bring up Steve’s bonding situation. Though come to think of it, Steve had bonded Peggy, and she was an Alpha, so it would have had to have been a blood-blood bond. Desperation made Bucky broach the taboo subject.

“When you bonded Carter, did she suffer any side effects?”

Steve’s eyes widened. He wasn’t used to people treading on that sacred ground. “No. I mean, not that I know of. Well, I’ve read that me deciding to put a plane down in a glacier was sort of a side effect.”

“What? I thought you were saving the world or whatever.”

Steve sighed and scrubbed at his eyes. “Yeah. Me too. But apparently lots of people have spent a lot of time thinking about it since then and decided I wasn’t in my right mind—that a lot of times Alpha-Alpha bonds can lead to outrageous risk-taking. I mean, it just seemed like the only thing to do. I don’t even remember thinking of any alternatives. But I guess I could have set an auto-pilot, or jumped out once it got low enough, or a bunch of other stuff…” he inhaled deeply. “Then Peggy—she wouldn’t have had to—ugh. It must have been so hard for her. She’s had an amazing life by anyone’s account, but God, I hate that I caused her so much pain.”

Bucky nodded, a little surprised that Steve was already willing to open up about this. “But physically,” he pressed, “did she have any effects from, you know, the serum?”

“No. I don’t think so,” Steve said. “Why?”

“The lady doctor thinks a blood bond might help Darcy’s system recover quicker. Banner agrees with her, but he isn’t pushing me.”

“What does she say?” Steve nodded toward the bed where Darcy lay.

Bucky snorted. “She said to get to it; she wants to be ‘Super Darcy’.”

“She would,” Steve said, an unkind edge to his tone.

Bucky turned. “What is your problem with Darcy, Steve? I didn’t believe her when she told me you hated her, but then next thing I know you kidnapped her and scared her half to death—now you know she’s just a civilian and you still sound like you’ve got a bug up your ass. Is she right? Is this about your Dad?”

Steve seemed to shrink into himself.

“I’m not sure,” he admitted, sounding small enough to be mistaken for the Steve Bucky had originally known and loved. “I honestly thought she was the enemy, but something about her just rubs me the wrong way. Nat thinks it’s because she likes you so much, but I hate to think I’m that small-minded. I more than anybody know you deserve someone to care about you.”

Steve looked down. “But I guess I’ve let my own fears get me down. Everything with Peggy...it’s so horrible. Sometimes it’s fine, but sometimes she sees me and she just breaks down. Sometimes she doesn’t remember what happened, why the bond is so...wrong. I can’t just tell her, oh, that’s because it happened seventy years ago and I left you alone that whole time.”

“You were buried under a block of ice, Steve,” Bucky said, not entirely sympathetically.

“Yeah, and why didn’t it fade? Why couldn’t she bond with her,” Steve gulped, “with her husband? Why couldn’t she have kids? Did I do that to her?”

Bucky shrugged, looking at Darcy. Now he was gonna have to make the same choice.

“So should I do the blood thing for Darcy?” Bucky wondered, not exactly asking for an answer.

“I dunno, Buck. She did tell you to. If I learned one thing about women from Peggy, it was that it’s better to follow orders.”

Bucky sat back. “Have you done it since--the blood thing I mean. With Peggy?”

“What? No! She’s—Peggy—you haven’t seen her, have you?”

“You never really sounded enthused when I mentioned going down to see her,” Bucky said.

“I guess I didn’t want to taint her memory.”

“For me?”

“Eh, for me. I wanted there to be someone in this world who when I mentioned Peggy, they’d see her the way I see her. She’s old. And her mind isn’t always there. It...it’s really painful. Darcy was right about that. Oh God, Bucky, I’m sorry. I was way out of line with her. What am I gonna do?”

Bucky shrugged. “You’ll have to ask her. If she gets better,” Bucky’s mind was pulling him back through all the worst things that could happen. Darcy dying, painfully, and leaving him alone. Without her stabilizing presence, he was open to the onslaught of horrors.

Steve’s concerned look was starting to piss Bucky off, so he snarled at Steve.

“What? If she dies, whether from the infection or this fucked up serum inside my body, then the bond will be broken, and you’ll get what you wanted, right? Me and you, alone in the future, with nothing. No ties, no family, just a crazy job with a bunch of people you didn’t trust with your concerns about Darcy.”

Steve choked. “God, Bucky. I’m so sorry,” he repeated. “I didn’t know...I didn’t know you wanted to be here. Everything’s so loud and fast and horrible. I can run laps around everyone, but that’s still not fast enough to understand what’s happened in this world. Have you read any of those history books, the ones about us? They wrote them thinking we were dead. We should be dead. If I never came back maybe Peggy could find some peace.”

“Nah, why would I read those books? We know what happened.”

“I didn’t know though, I didn’t know how many other challenges this world would face. Putting that plane down...did it really make a difference? How would I even know?” Steve sounded so dejected, Bucky’s anger faded a little.

“I can’t answer that Stevie. But if you really think you screwed up Peggy’s life by not being there, can’t you at least change the end of it?”

“What’d you mean?”

“Shit, you still know absolutely nothing about women. If you can’t do anything else, just be there.”

Bucky turned his head back to Darcy, pointedly ignoring Steve in a shunning gesture.

Steve sunk down further onto the floor. “You’re right. She’s right. I have to deal with Peggy. I owe it to her. Do you think—do you think you could come with me?”

Bucky looked down into Steve’s hopeful face, and a big part of him, conditioned to protect and care for his best friend, wanted to promise him whatever he needed. But breathing in, Bucky shook his head firmly.

“No. I have my own responsibilities now. Sam will go with you, or Natalia. But Darcy needs me, and I’m not leaving her for as long as it takes for her to get better.”

Steve stared at him, pain mixed with disbelief at the rejection. He slowly stood up. Bucky stood too.

“You can do this, Steve. Talk to somebody. The counselors here can really help you. And when you’re ready to go, you’ve got friends. You’re not alone here. You never were.”

He stuck his hand out, and Steve reluctantly took it.

“Good luck,” Bucky said. Steve gulped, shocked at the finality of Bucky’s gesture.

“Time’s up, Cap,” said Natasha, materializing around the corner. Steve moved to join her, but Bucky could still hear them as they stepped out into the hallway.

“Hey, at least he spoke to you.”

“He’s—he’s abandoning me. How am I going to make this up to him?”

“I’d worry more about making this up to Darcy. And she’d probably suggest you start by getting some therapy. Maybe you should try?”

“I guess,” Steve muttered as they finally faded from earshot.

Inside the room, Bucky hunkered down next to the bed.

“Where’dya go?” asked Darcy, stirring.

“Talkin to Steve.”

Darcy inhaled. “Steve, eh? I guess he probably didn’t come to deliver a get well soon card, huh?”

Bucky winced. “He feels really bad about everything. That punk’s really messed up, like you said before. I can’t say anything—I’m at least as screwed up.”

“Anyone would be messed up by what you guys went through. But I’m not sitting here with the guy who kidnapped me.”

“I’ve hurt lots of other people,” Bucky said darkly. “Other Omegas, innocent people, good people.”

“But you didn’t want to. And you’re not hurting me. I know it. I know this bonding is working. I can feel it. Can’t you? When I’m with you it’s all sunshine and buttercups and thoughts of the future and I’m practically swooning with the way you’re looking at me, which by usual metrics would probably count as a scowl.”

“I wanna believe you—” Bucky began.

“So believe me!” Darcy answered, trying to sit up. “Or believe yourself. Listen to your body, what is it telling you?”

Bucky rolled his eyes a little, but stilled. “I’m worried about you, Darce. I feel tense, and I’m getting used to you enough to smell that something’s not right.”

“Yes, yes, kidney infection. It hurts like a bitch, but what else? How about my breathing, my limbs, focus on what doesn’t hurt.”

“Okay, yes, you’re wonderful and perfect and I just wanna bundle you up and get you the hell out of here so you can rest.”

“We could probably do that a lot sooner if you’d give me your delicious Alpha blood.” Darcy flashed her ‘vampire claws’ and opened her mouth to show her even little Omega teeth. Omegas didn’t have the sharp canines of Alphas that could more easily puncture. But Betas didn’t have them either, and they still bonded through blood, whether by cut or bite.

“What if it hurts you, Darcy?”

“Then I’m fucked anyway,” she said, throwing up her hands in frustration. “Seriously, if you are the walking bag of poison you seem to think you are, then I’d be dying anyway, just more slowly. I don’t think that’s happening. I’m sure it’s not. But whether you speed it up or not, the overall result is the same.”

Bucky frowned. This was what he’d been avoiding thinking about.

“But what if I am poisoning you? Even if you’re right and it’s not my body, my mind is definitely wrecked. I’ve been trying, but I’m still six hundred kinds of not right. Darcy, what if being linked to me is hurting your head? Causing you to make bad decisions because of my shit?”

Bucky was thinking about Darcy’s ready acceptance of his plan to deal with Steve that morning, but as soon as he’d opened the door, memories of countless atrocities vied for his attention. He started to feel panicky, the way he used to before a blackout. Bucky put his head between his knees, folded in on himself on the chair, rocking slightly back and forth.

Little hands grasped his shoulders. Darcy leaned out of her bed and put her head on the back of his neck.

“Ssh, Bucky. It’s okay. I’m going to be all right. You’re going to be all right. We’ve got the option to sink or swim here, and as soon as you’re ready, we need to start paddling.”

“You really think a blood bond could help?”

“I understand why it’s scary to you, but I don’t think it’s going to hurt me.”

“Okay,” Bucky said very reluctantly. “But could we at least go back to your place—No, wait. It’s probably be better to stay here in case something goes wrong. Safety first.” He smiled weakly. “Gotta learn from my mistakes, right?”

Darcy scrunched up her face. “Nah, I’m gonna disagree this time. In case you forgot.... I am still in heat, and it’s getting to be that time again. I think we’ve got a little while before it becomes desperate, but despite what I like to think of as my healthy and enlightened attitude toward alternative sexual practices, I am not really down with the kind of exhibitionism that staying here is going to lead to.”

Bucky blushed brightly, glad that no one was in the room at the moment. Though he doubted that an audience would stop Darcy’s mouth. He rose quickly, his earlier upset receding as he planned their exit.

“Let me find the doctors, see what they say.”

“Hey, is Bruce still around?” Darcy asked.

Bucky inhaled. “Yes, why?”

“Oh, no reason. I just wanted to ask him something.” 

“About your infection?” Bucky asked.

“Oh no—totally unrelated. It can wait,” she said, breaking into cackles. “I just thought of something I want to talk to him about.”

Bucky rolled his eyes. Darcy still seemed out of it, but her little burst of mirth reassured him. She was well enough to take an interest in other people’s business, as he suspected she was currently doing, she wasn’t too bad off. He headed out to get the okay from Dr. Cho, hoping she’d be less clueless than most Betas about the realities of what was happening to Darcy. That IV line was going to have to go, and he hoped she wouldn’t ask why.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for your lovely support <3 <3 <3\. Yeah! Getting things done!
> 
> I'd love to know what you think!


	11. Chapter 11

“You sure we should be doing this?” Bucky asked for about the tenth time since they’d arrived back in Darcy’s apartment, her in a wheelchair and him flawlessly manoeuvring it with the utmost care until Darcy hopped out when they arrived at her door. “The chair stays outside,” she’d said, and despite his protests, Darcy wouldn’t budge. Giving in so that Darcy would be inside resting instead of upright arguing in the hall, Bucky realized that the normality of the surroundings was comforting after the stress of medical. The chair might have been jarring. Instead, Bucky delicately scooped her up into his arms and delivered her to the bed which he had quickly made over Darcy’s protests that he was wasting time before they’d left that morning. He smirked a little in satisfaction when Darcy happily settled into the pristine covers. She caught herself and stuck her tongue out at him, wriggling around to muss things up to her satisfaction. Unfortunately that move ended in a grimace, prompting him to scold her for being careless with herself.

Now she was urging him to get down to business with the blood bonding, and he was left stalling, hoping something, anything, would happen to make him less uncomfortable with the idea.

“Hey, so you should take a shower,” Darcy said out of nowhere.

“What? Why? I just took one this morning. You telling me I stink?” Bucky was rummaging around in the closet trying to find the older fraying towel he’d seen yesterday. If there was gonna be blood he should be ready in case things got messy. He was plenty tall, but Darcy’s closet had shelves all the way up to the ceiling inside, and he was up on tiptoe trying to reach the side.

“Maybe I just want you to take off your shirt,” Darcy teased.

Bucky quirked a smile, but without any ceremony stripped off the grey workout shirt he’d had on. He was rewarded by Darcy’s little gasp of surprise. Did she really think he wasn’t gonna do it?

“All you had to do was ask, doll,” he said, without turning around. There. He found the towel. It had blue and pink stripes on a white background and was frayed at the edges. Hopefully she didn’t have any deep emotional attachment to it.

“Oh yeah? Then...take off your shoes! And socks!” she commanded.

Bucky rolled his eyes, but toed off the sneakers he’d had Sam bring him up from his apartment this morning. At the moment, Bucky was wishing he’d just told him to bring it all, though even his limited wardrobe would never fit in Darcy’s overflowing closet or bureau. Would they need a bigger place? Would Stark find them one? That was one of those things that he should go straight to Pepper for, Bucky reminded himself. Asking Stark for anything was asking for trouble.

He neatly placed his shoes in the bottom of the closet and put his shirt and socks in the laundry basket for dirty clothes that took up the other part of the floor. He turned around, a smirk forming at Darcy, sitting up straight on the edge of her bed with a rapt expression. 

“Now take off your pants,” she said.

Bucky had to laugh at her false-innocent tone. He held out his hands. “Woah, woah, slow down Darcy. I thought we had some time to talk before all that.”

Darcy flopped back onto her mountain of pillows. She blew a strand of hair out of her face.

“Ugh. Do we have to? I thought we were clear: blood bond, do it, Darcy rests and eats delicious food that other people pay for. And that’s it for the foreseeable future.”

Bucky smiled and stepped toward the bed. Darcy pulled one of the pillows from behind her back and thrust it out at him, averting her eyes..

“Here. If we’ve got to talk you can at least cover up a little so I can concentrate.”

“What? You were the one getting me to take off my clothes!”

“Well yeah, but that was before I realized we were ‘talking’,” Darcy fake scowled, but her expression turned serious and Bucky went ahead and hugged the pillow in front of him as he sat down on the bed with her.

“Is this about Steve?” she asked. “You never said what you guys were talking about exactly.”

“Nah. He was sorry, and he said he was gonna try to fix things with Peggy. He asked me to go with him, but I told him I had other responsibilities now.”

“Responsibilities?” Darcy said hesitantly. Her emotions dimmed a little from impatience to insecurity.

Bucky shook his head. “Don’t go getting any messed up ideas like I see going on in that head of yours right now. I said that because I’m with you now. You’re my bondmate, and yeah, you’re my responsibility. But Darce, make no mistake—the only place I wanna be is by your side. It’s been a long time since anything in my life has felt right. This feels right.”

The words were simple, but the incredible feeling of relief, of finally having his actions in line with his instincts, was amazing. He could finally breathe. For so long his body had been enslaved, his mind hacked by HYDRA for their own nefarious purposes. He’d found some measure of peace working with the Avengers to protect the people he’d once preyed upon, but the theoretical protection felt nothing like the real tangible commitment he’d somehow accidentally made to Darcy. It was an accident of fate that he didn’t deserve after his crimes, especially considering how it had jeopardized Darcy’s recovery.

Dr. Cho had urged Darcy to stay in Medical for as long as possible to get her fluid up and stave off any possibility of kidney failure. Darcy had been acting antsy for an hour or so before they finally got out of there, but Bucky had been monitoring her with his whole being, so he could tell she’d been faking out the doctors about how much time she had before her heat demanded satisfaction. He was conflicted about the lie, but eventually let it slide after the nurse commented that Darcy seemed much better than she had earlier in the day. Bucky wanted some time to get Darcy fed and settled before jumping into any sort of sexual situation.

Blood bonding didn’t technically require the same intense sexual build-up of the Alpha-Omega bonding bite, but Bucky was pretty sure Darcy would prefer the traditional romantic scenario to the clinical alternative that Dr. Cho had offered them downstairs. Although they’d already bonded, and by the doctors’ accounts it seemed successful, Bucky still wanted to please Darcy, and if that meant letting her drink his blood while ringing her bell, then so be it. This wasn’t to say he didn’t have reservations. On the contrary, any time he allowed his mind to turn to the subject he was swamped with fears—what if there was actually something dangerous about his blood? And more practically, what if Darcy’s body was not up to the rigors of heat sex? He’d been unable to stop himself from reacting on a primal level to Darcy’s ample curves and intoxicating scent in that Siberian safe house. Would he do any better now in her bed? He hadn’t the night before or early this morning—what if he’d been too rough with her? 

Bucky shook himself before he did something stupid like burdened Darcy further with his insecurities. While Darcy lounged in bed, Bucky picked out some of the more easily portable leftovers—some sushi that was probably going to need to be eaten immediately, despite his conscientious refrigeration practices. He delivered it to Darcy with a small but hopeful smile. Darcy’s body was still fragile from illness, but now that they were back upstairs, Bucky was starting to relax and enjoy the simple acts surrounding caring for his bondmate. It really was amazingly satisfying to watch her eat, and he hadn’t even cooked the food. Bucky was sidetracked by a little fantasy of him fishing at the shore like he and his pop had done once and coming up with dinner to feed Darcy. He blushed a little at how silly he was being. With a shake of the head, Bucky returned to the kitchen to get another glass of water for Darcy. She was making happy eating sounds from the bedroom, and Bucky realized that this could be his life. 

Sure, he’d probably have to go on missions with the rest of the team to keep pulling in Stark’s paychecks, but there might be jobs available for a guy like him that weren’t quite so hazardous. Hell, even Hydra had kept him in house for training other assets most of the time, so maybe he could do something like that now? Bucky hadn’t willingly interacted with new people since he’d returned to the Tower all those months ago, but suddenly the need to be near Darcy made a change of venue desirable. They could eat breakfast together, both work in the Tower, and go out to lunch together.

“What are you thinking about, Bucky?” Darcy asked, trying to draw him back into the bedroom

“Oh, just wondering when you’re gonna be done with all this and want to go out to eat instead of sticking around inside all the time.”

Darcy quirked her lips. “Are you really going to be okay taking me out to lunch in midtown Manhattan?”

“Sure, doll, why not? It doesn’t have to be anything fancy…”

“No, no, I’d love to. But if I don’t go back on suppressants I’ll be like the only out Omega on the island. Or maybe all five boroughs. Hell, maybe the tri-state area.”

“But, but, we’re bonded,” Bucky said, brow furrowed.

“Yeah, but there’s a bunch of schmucks out there who still won’t want to leave me alone.”

“They would mess with a bonded Omega? What the hell!” Bucky’s expression darkened, imagining how this might go down. He didn’t usually relish the prospect of violence, but in this case he was feeling pretty keyed up.

“I guess when you were younger there were still bonded Omegas around. Nowadays the only time people might see Omegas is when they’re pregnant. Otherwise they’d be on suppressants, unless they live someplace more secluded with excellent security. There are communes out there, where Omegas are supposedly free to be themselves, but people always talk about them like they’re one step sideways from being a brothel, so I don’t know very much about it.”

Bucky had choked on his own spit when Darcy had casually tossed out the word “pregnant” but recovered enough to ask, “Are there really no Omegas who can live normal lives without suppressing their true natures?”

Darcy shrugged. “Nah. Well, I feel like I have to take issue with ‘true nature’ because isn’t all of this a primarily procreative function? Scientists have speculated that Alphas and Omegas are evolutionary offshoots from Betas. Like we’re a moderately successful experiment that Mama Earth has been running on different ways to make babies. And we— _all_ of us—are more than that. Right?”

“Yeah, but isn’t continuing your family line still important? Don’t people care about the future?”

Darcy looked a little uncomfortable. “The future is already in trouble. Stark and people like him—scientists, not assholes—are trying to reverse the problems, but all that industry that powered the wars of the twentieth century has left this planet in pretty bad shape. I’m not sure leaving a legacy for your children can mean the same thing anymore.”

Bucky grimaced. He’d heard people talking about climate change and global warming and renewable energy, but he’d had so much of his own shit to deal with that he hadn’t really let it in. Now listening to Darcy talk about the way people—especially Omegas—had become detached from nature as a result overwhelmed him. All those people who’d worked so hard during his lifetime—his first lifetime—scrimping and saving and producing and innovating, and it all came down to them having destroyed the planet for their children’s children. It made the whole thing seem so futile. Much as he hated to even tiptoe onto such shaky ground, hadn’t HYDRA’s whole thing been that humans were too selfish—too chaotic—to build a functioning society if left on their own? Bucky shuddered. They couldn’t be right. Anyone who was willing to use the methods they had used to achieve their ends were evil. That had to be the end of it.

Darcy had climbed out of bed and moved over to where he was standing in the doorway to the kitchen. Only when she put her arms around him and held him tight did Bucky realize that he was shaking. Darcy pulled his head down onto her shoulder much as she’d done for Steve earlier, and Bucky let the feeling of connectedness spill over into him. Bucky breathed in her scent, hating the sour-bitter tinge of infection, but allowing himself to be swept up in the comforting rightness and intensity of the heat-scent coming off of her. How could something be so comforting and yet turn him on at the same time? They must be getting closer to it being time, but Bucky would wait for Darcy to make the first move. Of course.

“Sorry,” he managed.

Darcy pulled back just enough to look up into his face. 

“I’m here. I’m always gonna be here. And I’m sorry for sounding so down about everything. I don’t think it’s time to throw in the towel on humanity. As long as we’re here, we owe it to ourselves to keep trying. For us and for those future generations as well.”

Bucky shifted, and led Darcy back to the bed, urging her to lie down, and tucking the covers securely around her while he tried to figure out how to voice his next concerns. 

Finally Darcy stilled his hands, holding them and pulling him to sit on the edge of the bed next to her.

“Bucky, if something’s bothering you, you can say it. I don’t mean to push you, but new bonds are all about laying down patterns right? If something’s on your mind, I absolutely want you to feel like you can tell me.”

Her eyes were sparkly blue and concerned, and Bucky twisted a bit to face her, but dropped his eyes down to where he could see a stack of discs and wires that had fallen down behind her nightstand. He could hardly wait to get her out of the bedroom so he could more thoroughly clean in here. But she’d asked, she cared, so he looked up.

“Are you gonna be sad if there’s no future generations for us? I mean, did you—do you want to have kids?”

Darcy raised an eyebrow. “Well, what I wanted or planned is pretty much moot at this point, at least for this cycle, right? It’s in the hands of fate or my body or whatever whether I get pregnant or not. And well, I hadn’t thought about it much. So far in my life I hadn’t met anybody I was serious enough about to go off suppressants with. While I wish we could have had a little more choice in the matter, I don’t think freaking out about what’s already happened—or is happening this cycle—is going to do us much good.”

“No—you don’t understand. I’m not talking about whether or not you’ve conceived—I know. I can’t have kids. Hydra, they tried to start a—a breeding program with supersoldiers. But it didn’t work out. None of the times they tried. And they tried plenty of times.”

Darcy nodded slowly. “Well, ok. So maybe we’re not gonna have a baby this time. Though I’m not sure you should put quite so much faith in Hydra’s tests—”

Bucky huffed out a traumatized laugh. “Darce, they tried _everything_. You don’t understand—”

She held up her hands. “You’re right. I don’t know the details and can never exactly understand what they did to you. I do understand it was awful. I can feel it, inside you. But you said they were never able to get you to bond with anybody either, and, whelp—” she indicated the newly-bandaged bite at the base of her neck.

Bucky scowled. Darcy should be taking this more seriously. She’d had no choice here, and now she’d gotten stuck with a defective Alpha who could never give her children and she didn’t even have the decency to take him seriously. This was a big deal, dammit.

Darcy had already begun talking again. “...thoughts about that anyway. Maybe you’re like—like a giant panda!”

“Uh, what?” She’d surprised him into a real laugh despite the serious topic. “How in the hell am I like a lazy-ass vegetarian bear?

“Don’t like that one? How about a white rhino? Any better?”

Bucky was still looking at her like she was crazy. Darcy laughed at his face and reached up to tickle at his sides against his bare skin. It didn’t really get to get to him, but he still caught her hands and kissed them, holding them in his lap while she continued spouting nonsense.

“Oh fine, a cheetah. You’re a cheetah then, you happy?”

“Happy—er? I guess that’s better than a fat bear who eats sticks. What are ya talking about?” 

“All those animals can’t breed in captivity. We’ve got some ideas about things that may be stopping them, but there’s a bunch of stuff science still hasn’t figured out. Sound familiar? It’s pretty much the same for dynamics, right?”

“So why do you think we were able to—bond?” his voice dropped down on the last word as Bucky was swept back to that unreal moment in his mind—was it always gonna be like this whenever bonding crossed his mind?

A blush working its way down her neck was the only sign Darcy had noticed his train of thought. “I don’t know. Maybe you finally shook off whatever panic-reaction was keeping you messed up under Hydra’s control. Or maybe,” she paused dramatically, “we were destined to fall in lovvvvve!” Darcy had seriously ended up singing that last part and Bucky had no idea what pop song or Disney movie that one was from. He quirked a smile at her exuberance.

“C’mon Darce, I was trying to be serious.” Bucky still wanted to know what she thought. About kids, about him, about it all. She had done a pretty good job of lightening his mood though. Darcy smoothed her hair behind her ears and shrugged.

“Well, what do you think about babies?” She said defensively.

“Me? It doesn’t matter—like I’ve been telling you, I can’t have any.”

Darcy sighed. 

“Alpha and Omega are technically known as ‘procreative identities’ because they’re centered around making babies. For Omegas, there’s no birth control like for Alpha and Beta women. Suppressants are it. And we’ve been going at it, knotting and everything...I’m not trying to freak you out here, and I hear you—you think you’re not going to be able to have kids because of the serum. I’m not pushing for them, believe me. But I do want you to consider the possibility.”

“God, how can you stand it Darcy? Everything about me is so fucked up. I can’t be certain about anything.”

Darcy smiled. “Hey, my best friend’s bonded to the crown prince of the universe who any day might decide to take her up to Asgard for eternity, or whose crankypants father might sever their bond so Thor can be with someone more befitting his station. If Jane can live with that level of uncertainty, I can handle anything.”

“Do you want kids?” Bucky asked tentatively.

Darcy shrugged. “Seems like a lot of responsibility, and even more work. But I dunno—I guess it’s always been a subject I thought I’d look into if I ever met that special someone.” She smiled wryly. “This is me, starting to look into it.”

She shook his arms. “Now stop avoiding it. You brought it up; what about you?”

“Me?” Bucky squirmed away on the bed. “I hardly think international war criminals and assassins are generally considered father material,” his voice was starting to get a crazed edge again, so Darcy reached over and held his hand. 

“I know a lot has happened. I’m not trying to minimize that. But before, did you ever wonder about it?” Darcy asked.

Bucky took a deep breath, and pulled Darcy close again. Somehow it was easier to talk to her hair about this than her face.

“Before the war? I guess. Stevie and my family kept me pretty busy, so it didn’t really register. But yeah, I always figured I’d find somebody, probably a Beta of course, who I could talk into having a coupla kids.”

He tried to sound nonchalant, but Bucky knew Darcy could see straight through him. He’d wanted a family. His parents had done their best to put down roots in their new country, and he’d known they both viewed it as starting a new line in a new land—there’d be grandchildren and great-grandchildren throughout history, God willing. Livvie getting taken to the sanitorium was crushing, in part because they’d likely never get to know her descendents, if she even had any. Suddenly Bucky was overcome with curiosity about Becca, his Beta sister. Had his Ma and Pop ever gotten the grandkids they’d deserved? Bucky had been discouraged by his therapist from diving into the past straight away. They’d both agreed that he needed to work on coping with the present first, and Bucky knew the doctor wanted him to form some more ties with his team and in the Tower—other than just Steve—that he could rely on if the news, or history, he guessed, about his family was tragic.

Steve had thought that was negative thinking, but to be perfectly honest Steve hadn’t had much to lose, family speaking. Yes, there was all that mess with Carter, but that wasn’t something to be unexpectedly discovered in a history book. From the start, Bucky had appreciated Dr. Whitman’s pragmatism and focus on handling one thing at a time. He was going to have one hell of a session on Monday, if Darcy was done her heat by then. 

Speaking of. Darcy poked him in the ribs, and changed the subject abruptly.

“Hey,” Darcy said. “How should we do this blood-bond thing. The doctor gave you a scalpel, right?”

Bucky shook his head. “I—I’d rather not use it. It’s one of those things—whatdya call em. Triggers. I’m supposed to avoid contact with them whenever possible, so I thought that would go double in a situation where I could end up hurting you.”

Darcy nodded. “Okay then, I guess...should I get a knife from the kitchen?” she asked hesitantly.

“I’d rather use one I’m used to,” Bucky said, reaching for the one strapped to his calf under his pants.

“What the hell!” Darcy cried, as the knife materialized seemingly from nowhere.

“Relax,” he said. “This one’s real sharp, so you wanna line up your cut carefully.”

Darcy looked at the knife, fear and intrigue and disgust mingled. “You mean, just...stick you? But it’s so big!”

Bucky knew he should be more serious; this was a serious situation. Maybe Darcy’s hormones were going to his head again, but he snickered, just barely biting back an off-color remark. Darcy sensed it anyway, and rolled her eyes, bopping him on the head.

“Bad Bucky!” She looked at the gleaming blade again. “Seriously though, I’d feel better with a smaller one…”

“‘S all I got, doll,” Bucky laughed.

Dary bared her teeth at him. “Watch it mister, or I’m just gonna gnaw on you with my Omega chompers until you bleed.”

Bucky shrugged. “If that’s what you wanna do.”

“But they’re too dull—it would hurt you more, right?” Darcy was chewing on her lip in anxiety.

Bucky carefully set the knife down on the bed so he could take her hands in both of his. Her concern was completely ridiculous. There was nothing that Darcy Lewis could possibly do to seriously injure him, and any minor injury she inflicted would be healed almost instantaneously. Yet her concern touched him. He’d suffered so much physically under Hydra’s science division’s endless experiments and conditioning that he was ashamed to say that missions where he was the one inflicting the suffering had become at times a welcome reprieve. Darcy’s concerns were not warranted, but it still felt good to have someone treat him with care. Even the team, who knew from firsthand experience how durable he was, tended to treat him as if he were completely made of metal. Having someone prioritize the human bits felt—it felt like maybe he wasn’t as far gone as he’d thought because it made him want to cry.

Instead, he let go of her hands, picked up the knife with his left hand and sliced the skin on the inside of his wrist, up his arm toward his elbow. The knife slid along his skin in a familiar burn, and though the cut was barely a couple inches long Darcy gasped and scrambled back on the bed, horrified. Not sure advancing on her would comfort her, Bucky reached for the striped towel he’d placed at the foot of the bed so he wouldn’t bleed all over her comforter. Although, he reflected, maybe if he did they could get one a little less...loud. The bright pink and green was not his thing. Not in the least.

Bucky sat perfectly still while his bondmate decided how to respond. Finally, Darcy drew in a breath and reached toward him. 

“Should I just?” she reached toward his arm, as if to bring it to her mouth, but stopped. “No. Beta’s bond blood-blood, right? Because it’s hard for them and gives them the best chances right? So, uh, I can make a cut, like at a wedding-bonding, and then, we can match.” Darcy’s smile was uncomfortable, but she didn’t seem to want to ingest his blood despite her jokes about vampires all the way up from medical earlier, so Bucky flipped the knife in his metal hand, catching the blade and offering it to her handle-first.

Again, Darcy retreated. “Me? Uh, uh, I guess yeah. You wouldn’t want to do that to me, I get it,” Darcy nodded to herself. “I didn’t want to do it to you.”

She grabbed the knife, waving it around while she talked. In her tiny unpracticed hands, a standard-sized combat knife looked outrageously huge. Bucky followed the point with his eyes as Darcy gesticulated.

“I can do this, right? People do it all the time! Beta wedding-bondings have this as part of it, whether it’s Beta-Beta, or Beta-Alpha or -Omega, and it’s not like I’ve never been to a wedding-bonding, though, it’s mostly symbolic, right? Like, it rarely takes on the first try. So it’s just a little poke. Or, as least that’s how it was at my brother Brian’s wedding. Even then I thought he was gonna pass out when the officiant jabbed him. Man, I guess I can’t exactly laugh at him anymore,” she finished as she held the knife awkwardly over her arm.

Jeez. She was gonna really hurt herself if she didn’t just do it and set the knife down. Or hurt him, he thought, as the tip of the knife wove in his direction. Bucky sighed, and put his hand over hers. 

“You want help?” 

“Yes please,” Darcy said meekly.

Bucky guided her hand down and just barely pressed the knife blade into the soft pink skin on the underside of her forearm. He pulled the knife away, cleaned it and resheathed it before the blood welled up and Darcy gasped.

“Woah—you did it! You just cold cut me! You are like, way too efficient with that thing, Barnes,” she complained.

And where did all that precious sympathy suddenly disappear to as soon as he demonstrated even the barest hint of his skills? Bucky frowned at her and grumped out, “You gonna do something with that Lewis? Because I’m gonna heal completely if you keep yammering on.”

Darcy frowned back, and smushed her left arm over his barely bleeding right, clutching at his hand so that their elbows touched. For a minute nothing happened, and Bucky belatedly remembered all his fears about his serum-corrupted blood infecting Darcy and destroying her cells from the inside-out. He was just about to rip his arm away from Darcy’s when a crushing wave of sensation overcame him. At first it wasn’t pain, it certainly wasn’t pleasure, it was just a wall of solid feeling descending on top of his head and pressing all around him. Then as soon as that feeling of immersion lifted, his senses were immediately overloaded, all the myriad stimuli that he’d struggled to process in those first days after having been injected with the serum echoed through him. He closed his eyes in defense. The thought occurred that Darcy might be experiencing them too, and Bucky forced himself to look at her. 

Sure enough, Darcy had ducked her head and grimaced, but as he looked at her, his senses slatted back into place and he reached for her. Since his flesh arm was still attached to Darcy’s, he tentatively brushed her hair from her face with his metal hand. God, she was beautiful. The poor kid had been through the wringer, and still she was trying to work it out with him. Before he could stumble down the rabbit hole of why he was such a bad prospect for bondmate, Darcy’s eyes opened and her features shifted to such wonder and delight that his dark train of thought was immediately derailed. She drew in a breath, and despite the crumpled dark red top she’d slipped on this morning, she was more radiant than any starlet. 

At this point they’d put off sex for several hours past the tentative every-twelve hours guidelines he’d read about online, on her part out of exhaustion and on his out of a desperate desire for her to feel better. But suddenly it was the only thing on his mind.

Reading his mood more than his mind, Darcy’s expression turned sultry, her lips forming that perfect pout, cheeks and mouth red without any need for rouge. The effects of her heat heightened arousal traits, and the next breath was full of her pheromones giving him the message that she was ready to go, and wouldn’t put it off any longer.

“Bucky,” she started, but if they got sidetracked again Bucky thought his normally impressive control might finally break (again), so he leaned forward and kissed her tentatively, a question that was eagerly answered in the affirmative. Darcy reached her free hand up to pull him toward her, neither of them wanting to break the grip pressing their forearms together. Bucky kissed Darcy more fully, and wondered if this time she might let him face her. While the more traditional position was extremely satisfying, there was something about seeing her face, and okay, her breasts, while knotting her that intrigued him. 

Darcy leaned back on the pile of pillows that he’d fashioned for her earlier, and somehow they managed to keep their arms in contact. He looked at her questioningly, and Darcy nodded. They’d see how long they could keep that contact then. Darcy stretched their joined hands and arms to the side. It would be difficult, but Bucky wasn’t going to back down from a challenge in the bedroom. Plus, he cautioned himself, he had to be careful with Darcy. Her body was tired and cementing a bond and fighting a nasty infection. He slowly and carefully covered her body with his. 

Her shirt rode up, and he guessed it would probably have to stay since it would have to come off over their joined arms. So much for the full front view. But then Darcy was kissing him and reaching for him with her other arm, drawing him in so that she could kiss his neck and tangling her legs with his in her perfect incessant way. Bucky hastily pushed his pants down, unbuttoning them with his metal hand and taking his shorts with them. His chest and feet were bare from Darcy’s shower fake-out earlier.

He kissed her again, surging into the hollow of her throat this time, teasing at the sensitive place where her bonding mark would always be visible on her skin. Maybe he should feel guilty about marring her perfect skin, but instead all Bucky could feel was pride and gratitude. Darcy was his, and he was going to be hers for as long as she’d have him.

Darcy moaned, the base of her neck was amazingly sensitive. Bucky sank down, his metal arm supporting him as he ran the tips of his pointed Alpha canines over Darcy’s throat, down toward the peaks of her full breasts, which he could just barely reach inside her shirt. The bra she had on today was softer and easy to shift out of the way. Bucky was grateful for that. He was a bit annoyed that his right arm was out of commision, still holding Darcy’s, but he levered himself to the side and managed with her help to remove her jeans and panties.

As undressed as they were going to get while still pressing their arms together, Bucky slowly pressed into Darcy, pleased to find that she was wet and ready. Since his free hand needed to support his weight while their joined arms bent at the elbow, clasped hands resting by Darcy’s head.

Bucky looked into Darcy’s dilated pupils, breathing in the intense heat-scent and feeling her chest heaving under him. She was already moving, her arms snaking up his back and her hand twisting in his hair. She ground against him, startling a groan from Bucky. While he wanted to slow down, to learn her body and really relish being with her, he knew that sort of lovemaking was going to have to wait until she was done her heat cycle. Then Darcy’s body wouldn’t be pumping him full of hormones that demanded he give her whatever she needed while she was wired to take take take as much as he could give. Bucky levered himself back up, kissing Darcy full on the mouth, but resisting her attempts to flip their position.

“Just stay back, if you can. Let me…” He trailed off, sensation overwhelming him as Darcy managed to squirm up enough to slide the head of his cock inside her. Bucky groaned, but kept his breathing deep and even, letting Darcy’s frenzied pace level off into something that would be more satisfying. He could keep it up, he’d have to. And so he continued on with Darcy moaning and keening.

“Bucky, sit up, I have to move,” she urged, changing position so that she was only slightly reclined and they were supported by their arms against the bed. Darcy scrambled around, urging Bucky to move again until he’d moved his legs under them and she could tip him over backwards onto the bed.

“Oh yes!” Apparently the change of position was working for Darcy. Bucky gave up trying to keep Darcy from exerting herself, and was immediately rewarded. Tension rose in waves, until finally relief and release crashed over them both. Darcy was panting, out of breath, and it had to have been hurting her kidneys, but she wasn’t complaining. Instead she was holding her body above his, her left arm still locked against his right, and her right arm trailing across his chest. He pulled her down on top of him, the feeling of knotting her from this angle both amazing and slightly uncomfortable. 

Shaking with the aftershocks, Bucky’s eyes were already closing when Darcy laughed in delight, sitting up over him and indicating her arm. 

“It’s definitely not hurting me,” she said.

Bucky blearily leaned away from her and geared up to mount a protest: she couldn’t know that already, the doctors had said to carefully monitor her condition for the next twelve hours and notify them if anything went wrong. But then he breathed in. And it wasn’t a miracle—the scent of infection was definitely still there—but it was already better than it had been. She was still tired, and they both could use a bath. Trying out that big fancy tub together was definitely on his agenda. No more showers. For now, though, it was enough to breathe and know that Darcy was his, that he was hers, and that they were so inextricably bound together that he was going to have to get his shit together because he couldn’t ever let Darcy down. Bucky rested his head against hers in relief, still propped up on his arms. Finally Darcy nudged him, and he shifted onto his side next to her, their joined arms at last peeling away from each other. 

Darcy wasn’t tired as she’d been all the other times they’d knotted. Bucky though, was having trouble blinking back the sleepy feeling in his head enough to listen to her bubbling conversation. 

“Hey, does this look like it’s healing fast? Maybe? I mean, your cut is totally gone, but this one isn’t that bad?”

This train of thought had Bucky sitting up immediately, leaning over Darcy’s body to examine her arm. When he looked at the puffy red skin around the thin line he sighed with relief.

“Nah, you’re fine. That’s normal. I barely touched that knife to you.”

“What? You like totally sliced me open. That huge knife couldn’t make such a puny cut!” she protested.

Bucky smiled and moved around so he could sink back on the pillows.

“Nope. You’re healing normally. It has an extremely sharp edge, so it just barely opened your skin enough to get some of my blood into you. You probably didn’t even bleed for more than a few seconds.”

“What? Really?” Darcy pouted where she was sitting. “I thought we were both bleeding all over the place.”

“I twisted my arm around a little to get some more blood out.”

“Wait so it was all yours?” Darcy frowned. “Are we going to have to have a do over?”

“It worked, right? Your bond is going faster, isn’t it? Why the hell would we have to do it over?”

“To make it fair!” Darcy said.

Bucky snorted. “Sorry, doll. No ‘Super Darcy’ for you.”

Darcy pouted, and Bucky reached up and pushed her lip in, a little shocked when her soft pink tongue darted out and licked his finger.

Bucky was contemplating seeing if she wanted to go again, since she seemed so awake, but on cue her stomach grumbled. Before he got any more comfortable, Bucky rolled up of the bed and headed for Darcy’s tiny kitchen. 

“I want the saag please!” Darcy called after him.

“I don’t know what the hell you just said,” Bucky groused. “Then again, I don’t think there’s any normal food in this apartment at all.”

“What, like boiled potatoes with boiled cabbage and maybe some boiled tripe if it’s Sunday?” Darcy returned. “The saag is the green sauce. I want some naan—some of the flat bread—too while you’re at it!”

Bucky smiled over his shoulder. Darcy was sitting up, pretending not to have been watching him walk into the kitchen bare-ass naked. Man, was his life different today than it had been three days ago. There was still work to do, Bucky thought as he riffled through the various takeout containers to find the green stuff that Darcy wanted. He wasn’t out of the woods psychologically speaking, and who knew how much of his functioning during the past 53 hours had been affected by bonding hormones and that crazy protective high. But they’d deal with it. They’d have to. He should talk to Pepper. They’d need a bigger place, and he might need a less dangerous job, but he’d do whatever he had to—whatever it took—to make things work for Darcy. She needed him now, while she was sick and in heat, to fetch and carry and satisfy her. But whatever she decided long term, whether she would go back on suppressants or not, Bucky knew with a deep certainty that he would always need her near.

“Get something for you too! You’ve barely eaten in the past two days! I know that ridiculous metabolism of yours—you’ve got to be starving.” 

Bucky sniffed the container in his hand as he stuck the flatbread things into Darcy’s toaster oven. He might as well get used to the kinda stuff she liked to eat, and thankfully it didn’t smell half bad.

Darcy appeared behind him wearing his shirt that she must have grabbed out of the laundry basket. What a slob. But it looked so cute on her, he couldn’t say much, especially as the combination of their scents on her body caused satisfaction to well up from deep inside him. She walked up behind him and stuck the whole container he’d been holding into the microwave. Then she wrapped her arms around him and held onto him.

“Don’t worry so much, Bucky. We’re gonna be fine. Let’s sit out here and eat. Not that I am not a huge fan of curling up in bed with Netflix and six types of takeout, but maybe for a change we could sit at the table and act like normal human beings.”

She smiled up at him, and Bucky smiled back without thinking. His grin grew wider when Darcy blushed a little and ducked her head, turning away to get plates and silverware.

“Can you like, tone down the hotness? Or am I just going to have to develop a higher tolerance for that smile?” Darcy said.

Bucky returned to the bedroom for some sweatpants and when he got back, the toaster had dinged, and the microwave beeped, so he brought the food to the table. The small square of wood couldn’t fit more than the two chairs around it, but the normality of sitting down to dinner together was causing Bucky to zone out a little bit. His life hadn’t had much normal in it for a long, long time.

Darcy filled her plate with rice and curry, then picked up her fork.

“Sorry I was so weird about the blood bonding.” She took a big bite.

“Uh...what?” Bucky’s thoughts had been so far from that he felt like he was swimming upward through marshmallow to try to catch up with her.

“You know, the part where we got kinda pissed at each other and you sliced us open with that huge knife.”

Darcy said this around her bite of saag. Bucky’s Ma would have slapped him silly for using such bad table manners. 

“It’s just a standard-sized combat knife Darcy, not a large one by any means.”

Darcy waved this away, swallowing. “No, I mean, I was feeling how much you didn’t want to do the blood bond. And with all the heat and hormones—my body was trying to make me do what you wanted. But there was no rational reason not to do the blood bonding. I’m already feeling a lot better. Tired, but better. The blood stuff was a hangup for you from your HYDRA trauma, and I totally respect that. But it was not a good reason not to do something that’s helping me recover from my infection more quickly. And I _knew_ that. But I still had to force the issue.”

Bucky’s brow furrowed. “You mean, your instincts were telling you to trust me, but...I wasn’t being trustworthy?”

Darcy quickly placed her hand on his and squeezed it. 

“No! Well, in this case, sorta. Please don’t turn this into some big self-pity thing. That’s so far from what I’m trying to talk about here. Or, actually, that’s part of it. Because you’ve had such painful experiences, I want to make things easy for you. Well, the Omega part of me does anyway. But the regular old Darcy part generally—on average anyway—makes pretty solid choices, so I need you to give me a little more slack, and a chance to articulate my thoughts, ok?”

Articulate? As if he could stop her. Bucky looked off to the side, where a bunch of board games were in a jumbled mess on the shelf under her coffee table. He’d reorganize those as soon as Darcy fell asleep.

“Hello? Bucky? Are you listening?”

Bucky crossed his arms and forced himself to meet Darcy’s gaze. She was concerned, and suddenly Bucky closed his eyes. This was important to her. He could feel it. This wasn’t the time to dissociate. He opened his eyes, and looked into hers.

“Yeah,” he said with a sigh, “I’m listening. And you’re not wrong. Besides all the HYDRA shit, I’ve only got some really spotty memories from the past 70 years. You’re gonna know a lot better than me about the modern world and how to get by. I need to hear your advice. I don’t want you to just try to keep me happy.”

Maybe this was why people thought Omegas were so demure? Especially when they were dealing with Alphas who wanted to feel in control at all times? That made sense.

“I’m going to keep fighting it. But it’ll help—I think it’ll help—if you _want_ to hear what I have to say, ok? Then I won’t have to fight against it.”

“Hmm,” Bucky said. Darcy was serious, he could tell that. And when he thought about it, her words made sense. Darcy was shifting in her seat, no longer eating her food.

He stretched his legs out under the small table, one on each side of where Darcy perched in her little chair.

“Yeah, I see what you mean. And I do want to know what you’re thinking. You’ve got a lot of good ideas. I can’t promise I’m not going to do what I think is best—I don’t know if any Alpha can promise that—but I’ll always want to know what you think and why.”

Darcy sighed with relief and took a huge bite of bread with curry on it. She chewed in silence, and when she finally swallowed, Bucky stood up.

“That’s enough food.”

“What? You’ve barely touched it!”

“You finish eating. I don’t know about you, but I could use a bath. I wanna see if that tub is a amazing as advertised.”

Darcy smiled. “Oh, it definitely is. You’ll see, it’s awesome. Jets and waterfall taps and everything.”

Bucky tugged her out of her chair. 

“What?” she asked.

“Changed my mind. You definitely need a bath too.”

“That right?” she smiled.

“Yep.”

“Well, you’re the boss,” she said sarcastically.

Bucky shook his head. “Not hardly.”

Darcy perked up at that. “Oh yeah? I like being the boss.” 

“Really? I had no idea…” 

“Shut up, Barnes.”

Bucky turned on her and tickled her sides.

“Bucky! Bucky! Ouch, my kidneys!” Bucky didn’t have to hesitate—his sense of smell reassured him that Darcy was faking him out for sympathy and he tossed her on the bed.

“Okay doll, you wait here.”

“Yes, sir,” Darcy saluted.

Bucky rolled his eyes at his bondmate but his smile was wide as he turned away. They were not captain and soldier, they were not handler and asset. They were partners, and there was a place in the wider team for both of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that's mostly it. There will be a short epilogue tying up a few themes and loose ends but this is the last real chapter. I know it is forever long and rambly, and could probably be cut wayyy back but my self-editing powers are not up to it right now. If something is obviously boring or unnecessary please let me know! Also if there's anything you really liked or were unclear on, I'd love to hear it.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! This has been so fun to write that I may actually do a little more in this universe. I have a meet-the-parents half-done and part of me wants to do Steve-and-Peggy, but I'm not sure what I'll do really... 
> 
> Anyway, I've enjoyed all your comments so much, thank you thank you, you are the best! <3 <3 <3


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